The Republican “betrayal”

Republicans only demand austerity and a balanced federal budget (and only indulge in their “debt ceiling” antics) when a Democrat is in the White House, or when Democrats control Congress.

For example, austerity mania raged in Washington from late 2010 to 2012, because a Democrat (Obama) was in the White House. Perhaps you remember Obama’s “cat-food commission,” and “grand bargain,” plus all the chatter about “sequesters.”

Before that, there were the disastrous four years of Bill Clinton’s budget surplus (1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001).

Republicans talk about austerity, but only Democrats put it into action.

When a Republican is in the White House, “deficits don’t matter,” as Republican Vice President Dick Cheney told Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill.

Indeed, on 31 Dec 2002 President Bush fired Secretary O’Neill for opposing Bush’s spending spree for the invasion of Afghanistan and (in March 2003) Iraq.

This pattern never changes. Therefore it amuses me to see “fiscal conservatives” whining about Republican “betrayals.”

Let me quote from a recent article in Forbes. My comments are in red.

The Republican Party is a deficit fraud

Let it be shouted from every mountaintop in the United States: Today’s Republican Party is a federal budget deficit and national debt fraud.

It has always been this way. Did you just now figure it out?

Contrary to what the GOP still wants you to believe, the GOP — the political party that once supported “pay-as-you” go rules and balanced budget amendments to the U.S. Constitution and still routinely excoriates Democrats for what it says is their profligate ways — today is not the political party of fiscal responsibility and reduced deficits.

It never has been. Deficit reduction (austerity) only applies to programs that help average people. And as I noted above, Republicans always say “deficits don’t matter” when they have the White House. Meanwhile spending increases every year for wars and weapons, regardless of who is in the White House.

More than three decades ago, former Representative Jack Kemp (NY), who at the time was one of the GOP’s budget gurus, was widely quoted saying the Republican Party “no longer worship(s) at the shrine the balanced budget.”

They never did. “Balanced budget” means cutting spending on social programs, while increasing spending for wars and weapons.

And the budget surpluses during the last 4 years of the Clinton administration were turned into 7 consecutive years of deficits ($2.1 trillion in total) by George W. Bush when he passed up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pay-off most of the national debt and instead used an imaginary projected surplus for a huge and very real tax cut.

Obviously this writer has no understanding of how T-securities work. He thinks the U.S. government borrows its spending money from private investors. In reality the so-called “national debt” never needs to be “paid off.” Each T-security is paid off as it matures.

But it’s hard not to look at the past as the warm-up to the enormous budget deficit and national debt increasing efforts Republicans are willfully and joyously doing now.

The sad thing is that even when the masses see that Republicans are deficit frauds, the masses believe Republicans every time they go back to lying about the deicit and the (fake) “national debt crisis.”

GOP President Donald Trump and his House and Senate Republican allies have proposed a multi-trillion dollar tax cut that isn’t needed to stimulate the U.S. economy and will increase the deficit by an average of at least $200 billion a year.

So what? The U.S. government creates its spending money out of thin air, simply by crediting bank accounts.

Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, who claimed to be an uber fiscal conservative when he helped found the House Freedom Caucus to force deficit reductions at every opportunity, is now demanding trillions of dollars in additional deficits and unbelievable increases in government borrowing.

Again the writer has zero understanding of the “national debt” and federal finances. He’s like this guy below…

Trump has proposed significant increases for military spending that will not be offset by other spending reductions. Instead, the existing caps will either be raised, ignored or gotten around with gimmicks and the result will be higher deficits and more debt.

There will be higher deficits, but not necessarily more “debt” (i.e. more money deposited in Federal Reserve savings accounts). The value of deposits will depend on how many T-securities the Fed wants to sell, and how many T-securities investors want to buy.

The budget resolution passed last week by the GOP-controlled Senate Budget Committee provides for a $1.5 trillion increase in the deficit and debt. (Over ten years.)  That will very likely become more than $2 trillion when the final version of the fiscal 2018 budget is developed jointly with the Republican majority in the House. There’s also billions for the wall between the United States and Mexico and a still-unspecified $1 trillion infrastructure program.

The article continues, but it’s more of the same nonsense.