WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: Government Shutdown Begins And Ends, Republican Congress Authorizes Trillion-Dollar Deficit

Ben Shapiro

Unicorns.

Leprechauns.

Fiscal conservatives.

All of these are figments of the imagination. But fiscal conservatives continue to haunt the darkened hallways of American politics, every so often materializing to shout “BOO!” at the party in power, only to recede into the shadows as soon as they are called upon to actually govern. How else to explain the sheer cowardice of a Republican Party that just passed a massive budget increase, then cheered it as the very model of a modern budget victory?

ABC News breaks down the bill:

The two-year budget deal would lift caps on defense and non-defense spending by $300 billion over two years. It also includes: $6 billion to fight the opioid crisis; $5.8 billion for child care development block grants;$4 billion for veterans medical facilities; $2 billion for medical research; $20 billion to augment existing infrastructure programs; and $4 billion for college affordability. The measure would extend government funding at current levels until March 23 to allow lawmakers to finalize details on the spending in a separate measure.

As part of the deal, lawmakers would also raise the nation's debt limit into 2019 avoiding the risk of a potential default.

Overall, the new spending bill returns us to the bad old Obama days of trillion-dollar deficits.

Jazz Shaw at HotAir rightly fulminates over this betrayal by GOP higher-ups:

I hope all of you who were fighting for fiscal conservative principles realize what this means, not just today, but in the long run. You can forget about ever wagging your fingers at the Democrats on spending from here on out. That ship has sailed. The next time the GOP loses control of Congress and the White House (and that day is coming sooner or later, believe me), don’t bother yelling about what they’re going to do to the national debt. That particular tool is gone from our arsenal. The GOP has finally been exposed as a group of limacine charlatans who talk a good game on fiscal probity but are unable to walk the walk.

All those fiscal conservatives of days past – Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) – voted for the new budget. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) attempted to block the bill by refusing to give the go-ahead to a vote on it sans an amendment process, complaining, “Every one of these Republicans complained about President Obama’s deficits.” But he was shut down. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) slammed the process as well:

The process matters. The fact is we will not always come to an agreement as to how much we ought to spend or what to spend it on. But I think we should be able to agree that the American people deserve a process that is open, transparent, and can be observed by the American people.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) lashed out at Paul for his temerity: “I know he wants to make a point. He has that right. I agree with many of his concerns about deficits and debt. But we are in an emergency situation.”

There’s a problem with this logic: it’s always an emergency situation. If we can’t handle four hours of a government shutdown in order to leverage cuts, we’re never going to cut anything – until it’s too late to prevent European-style austerity measures.

Worse, the new spending deal doesn’t actually count as a budget, as the editors at National Review point out:

A two-year spending deal means Republicans probably won’t go to the trouble of passing a formal budget for 2019. That would mean no chance for a so-called reconciliation process that could allow them to enact meaningful legislation with only 50 votes in the Senate.

So not only are Republicans blowing out spending, they’re unlikely to be able to pass any new legislation with 51 votes in the Senate.

Well done, GOP.

But the truth is that the Republicans are bowing to the inconsistency of the American people, who routinely tell pollsters they want government cut, but never want to actually cut government programs, and get angry when legislators shut down the government in order to try to do so. So long as the American people demand that their lawmakers lie to them, their lawmakers will continue to do so.

And Republicans are just politicians like any others, pretending fiscal conservatism when convenient, and abandoning it when it means educating voters rather than pandering to them.

https://www.dailywire.com/news...n-begins-ben-shapiro

I would like to know how much debt we can take on before it all collapses.

Washington is never going to show any restraint.

Government debt isn’t real, or at least it doesn’t have the same consequence as it does to individuals.

Or some nonsense like that.

Serious point though - the massive debt increase under obama has had what negative impact? To you or I, doubling our debt would be crippling, so when does it become a problem for government?

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
I would like to know how much debt we can take on before it all collapses.

Washington is never going to show any restraint.

Buy bitcoin

Surefire is right. Until the world no longer needs the dollar we are fine.

quote:

To you or I, doubling our debt would be crippling, so when does it become a problem for government?

It's a good question. It won't matter... until all of a sudden it does.
As long as the US Dollar is accepted as the world's reserve currency, we can continue to get away with this. But... it won't be forever.

In the meantime, "bipartisan" is just a euphemism for a deal between two criminal factions of the same ruling cleptocracy.

Mandatory spending is over half of every budget and of that, the greatest majority of that goes to Social Security, and health (Medicare/Medicaid).

There are a lot of people that claim to be "Fiscal conservatives" that benefit from those programs. I just wonder how those Fiscal conservative's justify that in their own heads?

There has got to be some kind of way to trim the waste out of this.

I want my government to provide national/boarder security, interstate roads, and make sure Kellogg's is not allowed to put lead in my corn flakes. I don't think they should be in the medical or retirement funding arena at all and I'd like to see severe cuts to other programs as well.

quote:

Originally posted by Southflorida-law:
There are a lot of people that claim to be "Fiscal conservatives" that benefit from those programs. I just wonder how those Fiscal conservative's justify that in their own heads?

How do they justify what?

People who work for a living directly fund Social Security and the majority pay more in than they receive in benefits. What is there to justify?

Social Security: Many pay more in taxes than they'll get back

quote:

$6 billion to fight the opioid crisis

and
$4 billion for veterans medical facilities; $2 billion for medical research.

Six BILLION dollars for the opioid "crisis"? More money than for research or veterans!?!
All (Well, not all because most will be wasted) that money will be used to wipe out pain clinics because they're easy targets.

I had hoped this administration would change things concerning pet projects and trillion-dollar deficits.

GGF

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:

quote:

Originally posted by Southflorida-law:
There are a lot of people that claim to be "Fiscal conservatives" that benefit from those programs. I just wonder how those Fiscal conservative's justify that in their own heads?

How do they justify what?

People who work for a living directly fund Social Security and the majority pay more in than they receive in benefits. What is there to justify?

Social Security: Many pay more in taxes than they'll get back

It's a God damned Ponzi scheme. Complete bullshit. Give me my 6.5% of my income back to me and I will give up all future claims to SS. I could drop that money into a treasury bond fund and end up better off, or put it into a index fund and it would equal 5 times as much as I get from the government.

It sucks my generation is the one that will pay in and likely never receive any benefit or severely reduced benefits.

End this scam now please.

Moody's Threatens US Downgrade Due To Soaring Debt, "Fiscal Deterioration"

Back in 2011, Standard & Poors' shocked the world, and the Obama administration, when it dared to downgrade the US from its vaunted AAA rating, something that had never happened before (and led to the resignation of S&P's CEO and a dramatic crackdown on the rating agency led by Tim Geithner).

Nearly seven years later, with the US on the verge of another government shutdown and debt ceiling breach (with the agreement reached only after the midnight hour, literally) this time it is Warren Buffett's own rating agency, Moody's, which on Friday morning warned Trump that he too should prepare for a downgrade form the one rater that kept quiet in 2011. The reason: Trump's - and the Republicans and Democrats - aggressive fiscal policies which will sink the US even deeper into debt insolvency, while widening the budget deficit, resulting in "meaningful fiscal deterioration."

In short: a US downgrade is inevitable. And incidentally, with today's 2-year debt ceiling extension, it means that once total US debt resets at end of day - unburdened by the debt ceiling - it will be at or just shy of $21 trillion.

We expect if not a full downgrade, then certainly a revision in the outlook from Stable to Negative in the coming months.

Here's Moodys:

The stable credit profile of the United States (Aaa stable) is likely to face downward pressure in the long-term, due to meaningful fiscal deterioration amid increasing levels of national debt and a widening federal budget deficit. However, the US economy is very strong, wealthy, dynamic and well diversified, and its role in the global financial system is unmatched. These factors help compensate for the impending fiscal weakness, Moody's Investors Service says in a new report.

Moody's has already indicated that rising entitlement costs and rising interest rates will cause the US's fiscal position to further erode over the next decade, absent measures to reduce those costs or to raise additional revenues. The recently-agreed tax reform will exacerbate and bring forward those pressures.

Moody's current baseline forecast is that the sovereign balance sheet will continue to weaken over the coming decade. Absent corrective fiscal measures, the US's Aaa rating will rely increasingly on its unparalleled economic base and the central role it plays in the global financial system.

The US economy's dynamism, competitiveness, rich resource endowment, high income levels and relatively supportive demographic trends underpin its economic strength. While evidence of declining growth potential, coupled with emerging aversion to open trade and foreign labor during a period of rising global competition, suggest that this level of relative strength could erode over time, we expect the US' broad economic strength to support its credit profile for the foreseeable future.

Moreover, the role of the US dollar in global financial markets and the depth and liquidity of the US treasury market remove all but the most extreme government liquidity and balance of payment risks. They insulate the US from external shocks and shifts in financing conditions in a way not seen with other sovereigns.

Moody's research subscribers can access this report, "Preeminent financial, economic position offsets weakening government finances", at http://www.moodys.com/research...px?docid=PBM_1108357

https://www.zerohedge.com/news...fiscal-deterioration

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
How do they justify what?

People who work for a living directly fund Social Security and the majority pay more in than they receive in benefits. What is there to justify?

Social Security: Many pay more in taxes than they'll get back

I thought CNN was "fake news"? :-)

The problem is that the country, expressed at the polls, is very nearly evenly split on fundamental principles which are diametrically opposed. It’s a lot easier to be bipartisan when one side has a comfortable majority, and a lot harder on the minority.

By “polls” I refer to those places on election day where dead people and imposters go to cast ballots.

quote:

Originally posted by Southflorida-law:

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
How do they justify what?

People who work for a living directly fund Social Security and the majority pay more in than they receive in benefits. What is there to justify?

Social Security: Many pay more in taxes than they'll get back

I thought CNN was "fake news"? :-)

That was just the first one in the long list of links

It's not an entitlement if you have paid more in than you get out of it.

quote:

It's not an entitlement if you have paid more in than you get out of it.

Actually, SS is NOT an entitlement either way. It's just a tax, and spending. You are not entitled to it, there is no separate account with your name on it, and the next Congress doesn't have to give you a dime of it.


Social Security is not an insurance program at all. It is simply a payroll tax on one side and a welfare program on the other.

The Court’s decision was not surprising. In an earlier case, Helvering v. Davis (1937), the Court had ruled that Social Security was not a contributory insurance program, saying, “The proceeds of both the employee and employer taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like any other internal revenue generally, and are not earmarked in any way.”

In other words, Social Security is not an insurance program at all. It is simply a payroll tax on one side and a welfare program on the other. Your Social Security benefits are always subject to the whim of 535 politicians in Washington.

https://www.cato.org/publicati...ight-social-security

I'm not always a Rand Paul fan, but I applaud him for standing up against this profligate spending. Repeating a line he used in 2015, Paul said, "I'm not advocating for shutting down the government. I’m also not advocating for keeping the damn thing open and borrowing a million dollars a minute. This is reckless spending that is out of control."

He's not off. There are 525,600 minutes in a year. That equates to $525.6 billion. The proposed spending bill (no one in his right mind can think of this as a "budget") adds nearly $1 trillion to the federal deficit.

Want to see the deficit in real time? https://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current

I guess these congresscritters figure they won't be around when the whole thing collapses.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

To you or I, doubling our debt would be crippling, so when does it become a problem for government?

It's a good question. It won't matter... until all of a sudden it does.
As long as the US Dollar is accepted as the world's reserve currency, we can continue to get away with this. But... it won't be forever.

In the meantime, "bipartisan" is just a euphemism for a deal between two criminal factions of the same ruling cleptocracy.

Good points.

Bad as it is I'm convinced the debt would be headed even higher if the Dems were in charge. I far from an economist but If the economy gets and stays hot for a sustained period of time that will make it better will it not?

Taking out the money for the opioid crisis and college affordability are good places to start trimming.