America Is Bankrupt And Washington Doesn’t Care

by Doug Bandow via TheAmericanConservative.com,
ZeroHedge.com
Mon, 01/22/2018

These poseurs of fiscal responsibility are about to drive up debt to its highest levels since World War II.

The United States is effectively bankrupt, but that doesn’t matter to the GOP. Once evangelists of fiscal responsibility and scourges of deficit spending, Republicans today glory in spilling red ink. The national debt is now $20.6 trillion, greater than the annual GDP of about $19.5 trillion. Alas, with Republicans at the helm, deficits are set to continue racing upwards, apparently without end.

This flood of red ink will increase. Last year the Congressional Budget Office figured the U.S. was going to again run trillion dollar deficits around 2022. An extra $10 trillion would be added to the deficit over the following decade.

But under Republican fiscal “stewardship,” analysts now believe the deficit could hit a trillion dollars next year. Why? Congress relaxed the sequester, eliminating its modest pressure for fiscal responsibility, and approved disaster relief, without making any corresponding spending cuts. Legislators also inflated military outlays, even though much of the Pentagon budget constitutes defense welfare, subsidies for prosperous and populous allies.

Even after the most optimistic accounting for the impact of increased economic growth, the tax bill will still add $500 billion to $1 trillion to the deficit over the coming decade. (In fact, those estimates probably understate the final cost since Congress is likely to extend provisions set to sunset in order to meet Senate budget rules.) If the president and Congress come up with an infrastructure bill, even more red ink will flow. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget predicts deficits of $1.05 trillion and $1.1 trillion in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

Welcome to modern Republican budgeting. Complained Congressman Walter Jones, the North Carolina Republican who has become a GOP dissident of sorts: “At the time I joined, the Republican Party was very outspoken about the debt of the nation. …I look at where we are as a nation now, and the Republican Party doesn’t stand for less government and less spending. It spends like no tomorrow.” Congressman Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan, was equally critical, telling Reason’s Matt Welch: >“It’s looking as bad as any time I’ve seen I’ve been in Congress.” Legislators, Amash says, continue “to move in the wrong direction.”

The last time the deficit ran this high was 2012, part of a four-year, trillion-dollar-plus spending run in the aftermath of the financial crisis and ensuing bailout tsunami. This time Washington is breaching the trillion dollar barrier during seemingly good economic times.

The Rest…HERE

This entry was posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2018 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Conspiracy, Corruption, Economics, Government Evil, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.