Friday, March 29, AD 2024 1:18am

1.3 Trillion Monstrosity

I thought the Republicans controlled Congress and the Executive but I must have been mistaken.  Surely no Republican Congress could have passed a spending bill that, in the words of Senator Ted Cruz (R. TX):

“The disastrous elements of this bill are almost too numerous to list.

“It continues to fund Planned Parenthood, a corrupt organization whose horrifying abortion practices should preclude it from receiving taxpayer dollars.

“It continues to fund sanctuary cities, which are defying the law and making Americans less safe. Instead of rewarding sanctuary cities, we should be passing legislation like Kate’s Law, a bill I introduced that would put criminal illegal aliens in jail so they cannot prey on innocent Americans.

“It fails to provide sufficient funds to properly secure our border, let alone build the wall that is necessary.

“It tells federal agencies that they can spend taxpayer dollars to study the ‘causes’ of gun violence, a mandate that – make no mistake – will be abused by future liberal administrations to manufacture evidence to try to violate law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

“It funds the Ex-Im Bank, a classic example of corporate welfare that has doled out over $100 billion in taxpayer-guaranteed loans, primarily to a handful of giant and well-connected corporations.

“It fails to reduce funding for the EPA, which under Obama administration zealots, killed thousands of jobs and dramatically strayed from its core mission of ensuring clean air and water.

“All of these measures amount to piling even greater debt onto the backs of our kids and grandkids, all because we are incapable of living within our means.

This terrible bill passed Congress yesterday.  The President, who I thought was Donald Trump but who obviously must be someone else, announced that he would reluctantly sign the bill.  Representative Nancy Pelosi (D.CA) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D.NY) have announced themselves as gleeful over the bill, and well they should be.

 

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Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 3:22am

So much winning or, should I say?, so much for winning!

Mary De Voe
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 3:48am

It is our money.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 4:00am

It’s taxation without representation. If we only had one dime back from each dollar that funded atrocities in the name of “woman’s rights.”

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 5:25am

So much winning or, should I say?, so much for winning!

The source of the trouble I would wager is (1) the Senate Majority Leader and (2) about a half-dozen insipid careerists in the Senate Republican caucus, supplemented with serial prima donna John McCain. The Republicans have as much “control” of Congress as these creatures are willing to countenance. As for the Senate Majority Leader, if he were worth a pitcher of warm spit, the Senate rules would resemble the House rules and permit no filibusters. Also, were he a serious person, it would be Lamar Alexander and Rob Portman on his s!%t list, not Ted Cruz.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 5:34am

It’s not President Trump. Ryan, McConnell, Graham didn’t do their jobs (the voters’ will).

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” Pogo 1970

Still, I give you a nightmare. Imagine what corrupt, incompetent Hillary would be doing.

Face it. Career politicians, including Dem and GOP; academia; the media are mandarins. They don’t care about the typical American voter who elected Trump. To them the unwashed majority get it wrong. How dare they disagree with Fed/Treasury MIT econ PhD’s/FBI Deputy Directors with insurance policies/CIA spies/climate science hoaxes? The elites use terms like “populist authoritarianism” and “dictatorship of the majority.”

What are you prepared to do?

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 6:08am

As president, Trump is the leader of his party. To divert blame from is an admission, perhaps an unwitting one, that he is not enough of a leader to take responsibility for what his party does. Is it McConnell’s fault that Trump,sign that tariff that sent the Dow into a 700+ point nose dive?

The buck stops at Trump’s desk. He needs to begin to understand that. Taking to Twitter blame someone else is not real leadership.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 6:32am

The buck stops at Trump’s desk. He needs to begin to understand that. Taking to Twitter blame someone else is not real leadership.

What are you talking about? The legislative branch is Congress. They don’t work for the President. He has suasion at his disposal and that’s it. He can veto laws, but there are practical constraints about attempting that with appropriations bills that do not apply with ordinary statutory legislation.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 7:33am

Trump is now considering vetoing the bill:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/23/trump-threatens-to-veto-omnibus-spending-bill-over-daca-and-the-border-wall.html

This would be a show of leadership on his part.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 7:45am

Government shut down? That threat is tiresome.

Shut it down if it means the slightest chance of De-funding Planned Parenthood..but alas, that’s not high on Trump’s agenda.

Prayers. Prayers for the unborn. Prayers for the demise of Worse than Murder Inc.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 7:46am

What are you talking about, Don? I have it from so many reputable sources that funds are being slashed across the board – that the poor are going to be forced to starve in the street and the rich are going to be shooting them for sport. /sarc

Is it any wonder we can’t get the budget under control when one side declares anything less than what it wants is tantamount to murder?

Time to repost this, I think:
https://youtu.be/EPjrFjAxwlw

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 12:18pm

“All of these measures amount to piling even greater debt onto the backs of our kids and grandkids, all because we are incapable of living within our means.”

One recalls the remark of Sir Boyle Roche in the old Irish House of Commons: “What, Mr. Speaker!” said he, “and so we are to beggar ourselves for fear of vexing posterity! Now, I would ask the honourable gentleman, and still more honourable House, why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity; for what has posterity done for us?”

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 3:00pm

One recalls the remark of Sir Boyle Roche in the old Irish House of Commons: “What, Mr. Speaker!” said he, “and so we are to beggar ourselves for fear of vexing posterity! Now, I would ask the honourable gentleman, and still more honourable House, why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity; for what has posterity done for us?”

Except you’re not going to beggar yourself to balance the budget in this country. We’re quite affluent as is. Other countries aren’t borrowing from abroad. The problem isn’t ‘we’. State and local governments balance their budget. This is an effectively unaccountable Capitol Hill class doing this in service to their patron-client deals and their personal shticks. You can bet Lamar Alexander et al got a mess of Cornhusker kickbacks and Louisiana purchases out of this, and since he got his, a mess of others wanted theirs.

CAM
CAM
Friday, March 23, AD 2018 11:22pm

We the people voted in a Republican majority in both houses and elected Trump/ Pence because we didn’t want outrageous bills like this to be passed.

stilbelieve
stilbelieve
Saturday, March 24, AD 2018 12:14pm

No. We voted them in to save our country from the total destruction Hillary Clinton and the anti-God Democrat Party would have made of the U.S. Constitution, flooding the Supreme Court and federal courts with their “progressive” anti-God leftist unconstitutionalest. Trump was a God-send to give us a 2 to 4 year reprieve to turn things around.

One important thing that is needed to turn things around is to get rid of McConnell’s 60 vote rule in the Senate. No election requires the winner to win by 10 percent. Simple majority rules. No sporting event requires the winner to win by 10 percent whether Little League or the majors. Simple majority rules. The McConnell 60 vote rule to pass anything in the Senate is a man-made rule, not required by the constitution. It gives the losers the opportunity to keep the winners from passing legislation the voters elected them to pass. I call it the “McConnell” rule because it is something he has in his back pocket if the GOP lose the Senate. In other words, it gives him power and makes him feel important, people be damned. McConnell and his 60 vote rule have to go. Nothing is going to change until that happens.

If we lose this chance God has given us with Trump’s election, and a Republican majority in Congress, I don’t see any chance of ever turning things around, and that will lead to Sister Lucia’s projection that the “decisive confrontation between the Kingdom of God and Satan we be over ‘Marriage and the family.” We are smack dab in the middle of that confrontation now, with legal abortion, same-sex “marriage” and especially with the latest attack against God with “transgenderism” being taught in public schools starting in kindergarten.

There is one thing that would really turn things around fast and that is if all those millions of Catholics endorsing with their names and actions (votes) the Democrat pro-abortion, pro-same sex “marriage,” pro-transgenderism Party, were to register out of that party and not vote for it again until it became pro-life, we could return God’s laws to their original position in our country’s institutions.

And there is one very good reason for those Catholics to do that —to save their souls. Right now, if Jesus were to return, those Catholics endorsing the Democrat Party with their names and actions will find themselves being told to stand on the left side of Jesus. Jesus said the Greatest Commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. How are they doing that when they are endorsing the anti-God party with their names, and giving it the electoral power to successfully attack Gods greatest gifts –the gift of life, and the sanctity of marriage?

Their shepherds should also be concerned for their own salvation with their remaining silent about those Catholics endorsing the anti-God Party, and for converting the original pro-life movement to the “consistent ethic of life” movement. Tell me, where is their “consistent ethic of life” found in the Democrat Party? Furthermore Jesus said that “only those who do the will of my Father in heaven will be in heaven.” How are those shepherds “doing the will of” God by allowing almost have of their sheep to endorse the pro-abortion party all these years giving it the power to keep legal the murder of over 600,000,000 American babies those Catholics say they believe God created?

CAM
CAM
Saturday, March 24, AD 2018 11:19pm

Well put STILLBELIEVE. Cdl Dolan recently wrote an op ed in the WSJ 3/23/18. Here’s an excerpt:
“I’m a pastor, not a politician, and I’ve certainly had spats and disappointments with politicians from both of America’s leading parties,” he wrote. “But it saddens me, and weakens the democracy millions of Americans cherish, when the party that once embraced Catholics now slams the door on us.”

“The dignity and sanctity of human life, the importance of Catholic schools, the defense of a baby’s civil rights” are “widely embraced by Catholics,” he said. “This often led Catholics to become loyal Democrats. I remember my own grandmother whispering to me, ‘We Catholics don’t trust those Republicans.'”

“A cause of sadness to him,” Cardinal Dolan said, is that “the needs of poor and middle-class children in Catholic schools, and the right to life of the baby in the womb have largely been rejected by the party of our youth.”
It’s a little late in the game. The cardinal was suckered by Obama over the Affordable Care Act, but seeing the light is better now than never.

Jim Woodward
Jim Woodward
Sunday, March 25, AD 2018 1:53am

If I remember correctly, this same domestic spending match to increased defense spending was foisted on Reagan; the only difference is then it was just billions on a national debt of billions instead of a trillion on a 21trillion debt, but who’s counting? Certainly not our legislators….

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Sunday, March 25, AD 2018 10:14am

I blame all in Washington, DC. Trump, the Republicans and the Democrats.
Since the government of this nation wants to destroy it, go have at it. Abortion, gay marriage, transgenderism, Obumblercare, a government that serves not the people but itself and an entertainment-media complex that despises Christianity and most Americans.

Each second Saturday in May, the nearly worthless EU hosts an open house of its embassies in DC. I’m going to visit the Embassy of Poland and inquire about citizenship being passed from great grandparents. I’m serious about this. I’ll spend my retirement summers in Poland and the winters in Cartagena.

Kurt
Kurt
Sunday, March 25, AD 2018 12:37pm

One important thing that is needed to turn things around is to get rid of McConnell’s 60 vote rule in the Senate.
McConnell will repeal it this fall, just before the Republican majority slips from his incompetent hands this November. Yes, even the Senate.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Sunday, March 25, AD 2018 1:44pm

The Democrats electoral calendar is sufficiently bad this year that it would be quite a tour de force if they took the Senate; their prospects in 2020 are better. The range of conceivable outcomes in the House in any given midterm election is quite large. The median result is a loss of 15 seats for the President’s party.

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