The recent budget deal is even worse than I imagined. Here’s Ravi Smith, from the previous comment section:
By repealing IPAB, which is essentially a cap on Medicare spending, the Republicans have massively increased the size of government. In the long run, that will probably be more important for sustainability than any of the tax changes or immediate spending items.
Conservatives used to try to argue that while the GOP would not cut spending, at least they would not increase it as fast as the Democrats. But even that is no longer true, and the reason is that the GOP is no longer either a small government or a big government party; they are something much worse, the party of crony capitalism. They are the party that forces the Pentagon to spend money on weapons that ever single military expert says are unneeded. They are the party that wants to shovel more spending into the insatiable medical industrial complex, even when every health expert tells us the spending is utterly worthless. They want to shovel more money to big agriculture, even though every economist will tell you it does nothing to prevent agriculture from becoming increasingly dominated by big farmers.
The Democrats also want to spend a lot of money on providing health care, but at least they have a slightly defensible reason, providing health coverage for the needy. The GOP would rather double spending on Medicare and gut spending on Medicaid, as long as it enriched wealthy people in the healthcare industry (while denying coverage for the poor.)
One thing the left and right seem to agree on is that the GOP is the small government party. That explains why the media are paying little attention to this fiasco. But they are both wrong. The GOP is the party of crony capitalism–small vs. big government plays no role in the modern political debate between the right and the left. America has become a European country. If it’s stupid bigots vs. stupid utilitarians, I’m with the stupid utilitarians.
The right used to mock the Democratic Party claims that high government spending does not hurt the economy. Now I see conservatives engaging in “magical thinking” that would put 1960s-era liberals to shame. All this orgy of spending is not a problem (we are told) because the GOP won’t pay for it with higher taxes. Instead we’ll just borrow the money! I’m not surprised that Trump thinks this way, he’s never had the slightest interest in reality. But I am sort of surprised by the number of conservatives drinking the kool-aid.
So let me make it really simple. There’s a pie. The GOP is about to give the government sector a much bigger slice of that pie. That means the private sector will get a smaller share of that pie. And no amount of deficit spending will change that fact, unless you believe that pouring hundreds of billions of dollar into ships and airplanes with no military purpose, and into an out of control medical sector, will magically cause “the pie” to grow.
Here’s the National Review:
Republican congressional leaders have announced a deal with Democrats to bust discretionary spending caps by nearly $300 billion over the next two years. Appropriations will rise by 13 percent this year. . . .
[That 13% growth is in contrast to NGDP, which will rise by about 4.5%. Think slices of the pie.]
The Republican Congress that aggressively pushed President Clinton on spending then turned around and rubber-stamped President Bush’s domestic spending spree. Now the GOP Congress that admirably fought President Obama’s spending agenda is set to bust the budget caps under President Trump.
So let’s see, we only get spending restraint when we have a GOP Congress and a Democratic President. Pity Hillary didn’t win. Seriously, I think things would actually be about the same if Hillary had won. The GOP would have done a deal of no repeal of Obamacare and a massive domestic spending increase in exchange for corporate tax cuts. (That was my prediction before the election, and I’m even more convinced today.) The only difference is that we wouldn’t have an embarrassing buffoon in the White House, with his finger on the nuclear trigger.
Hey Tea Party, how’s your support for Trump working out?