December 18, 2019

"The House on Tuesday approved a $1.4 trillion spending package... acting in a burst of bipartisanship just a day before Democrats plan to impeach President Trump...."

"The package passed in two pieces, one focused on GOP national security priorities including the Pentagon, the other on domestic agencies dear to Democrats such as the Department of Health and Human Services.... The year-end legislative frenzy, which came ahead of the divisive impeachment vote in the House, showed how far both parties have moved since last year, when a spending fight led to a 35-day government shutdown. This time, both parties reverted to a hallowed congressional tradition of embracing an enormous year-end spending bill. Each side made concessions to secure long-sought funding.... The spending binge generated predictable finger-pointing, with Republicans defending their demands for increased Pentagon budgets while accusing Democrats of profligacy in funding domestic agencies. Democrats argued the reverse, contending that more money for health and education programs was justified and blaming Republicans for making defense spending the price to pay. Few if any voices could be heard defending Congress’ overall addiction to growing the federal budget, and with it the nation’s debt, which now exceeds $23 trillion."

WaPo reports.

44 comments:

wendybar said...

Great!! Higher taxes because they aren't doing their jobs (too busy with impeaching a person they hate) and need to blow more of our tax dollars to buy their constituents votes..... YAY!!/snark

Kevin said...

Yesterday I learned we must remove the President because he might do something really terrible if we leave him in office.

You would think cutting off funds to Hitler would be the second-best strategy.

Apparently not.

Kevin said...

Bipartisanship: Both parties agree to screw the people.

exhelodrvr1 said...

The swamp ...

And we're all to blame, because as a general rule, we don't like politicians who tell the truth and try to make hard choices.

Greg Hlatky said...

Bipartisanship is when the Stupid Party and the Evil Party get together and do something stupid and evil.

Unknown said...

Just print more money - easy

Unknown said...

There is no real constituency for lower spending or higher taxes

party on Garth

rehajm said...

Sigh...

Marcus Bressler said...

Both parties and my president are complicit in overspending.

THEOLDMAN

Few have the guts to cut spending.

wendybar said...

Once upon a time, we had a TEA party. It was against more taxes, and wanted less government, and less taxes. The Media hated them. Joe Biden called them Barbarians, President Obama called them TEABAGGERS...(a sexual term...look it up). They were called crazies, flat headed, hillbillies, ect, ect...by our Propaganda media. Obama had his IRS get involved, and not give them their 501c status....(Look THAT up) Then the special interest groups took it over, and damaged the brand. The original people who were a part of the less Government, less taxes party are still out here. We are not a part of any party, but we are here and we are more pissed than ever over what these life time Politicians are doing to our country. I wish President Trump would NOT sign this money trap of a bill, but unfortunately, the "Republicans" will force his hand.

tommyesq said...

If it was passed in two parts, can either be vetoed while signing the other?

wendybar said...

Am I still a RACIST because I want less Government and less taxes, because that is what I got accused of throughout the whole Obama administration. I still feel that way. That is what a load of crap it was for everyone who didn't agree with Obama to get called a racist....EVERY time.

Mr. Forward said...

The bad news is the government is still paying 600 dollars for toilet seats.
The good news is they are now made out of gold.

Phil 314 said...

Filling the swamp

Amadeus 48 said...

There is no voice in Washington for fiscal responsibility. That got killed with the death of the Tea Party.

I have some leftie friends, and every time I say that to them, they say, yeah but they were racists. I ask what was racist about recognizing that the federal government has limited resources? They say well, they hated Obama.

Case closed, eh?

JML said...

As a Government employee, I was hoping for a shutdown. I guess I'll have to settle for an extra day off...

Gvt is broke, and the issues with poor leadership at the middle and senior level are huge for most Agencies. I am going to retire early next year - earlier than I had planned. I just can't take it much longer, and I can't effective assist my employees and protect them from the incompetence and failures we face on a daily basis.

BTW, I am a Contracting Officer. Why $600 toilets? Because, in my Agency at least, of the utter disrespect for Procurement Integrity by most people involved in the acquisition process, and a refusal by Senior Leadership to address it. Why? Nothing is more comfortable than a gold shitter...

wendybar said...

I didn't hate Obama. I didn't agree with his politics, but that doesn't make you a racist. I didn't agree with a lot that GW Bush did either. Am I against whites too??? This is why the Democrats lost, and will continue to lose. STOP putting people in boxes. It sucks to be thought of as a Racist, when you are clearly not, but the division started with people calling everyone who didn't swoon for Obama a RACIST. EVERY TIME!!!

Amadeus 48 said...

Anyone that thinks that President Trump, or anyone else currently in Washington, is a fiscal hawk is kidding themselves. There was a movement to keep federal spending at sensible levels, but it got crushed. And it is not the tax changes driving the problem. Federal receipts are way up, which is what happens during an expansion. Expenditures are way upper.

Our current federal follies are going to be paid for by inflation down the road, ideally after my wife and I have joined the choir eternal.

wendybar said...

And the REALLY sad thing is, they are still calling us RACISTS today. If you voted for and/or support Trump, you too are a Racist. Whatever that means.

wendybar said...

Exactly Amadeus 48!!!

Leland said...

And these are the people who want to hold Trump accountable. Nuts!

Amadeus 48 said...

The $600 toilet seats are a negligible part of the problem. The problem is fiscal irresponsibility. The last real progress on making Social Security sustainable happened in the Reagan years.

Medicare is medium to long term hopeless. There are some big financial problems there. It needs to be reformed. We boomers are a big enough cohort to relentlessly expose the problems over the next 10 to 20 years.

Hospice for all! The sooner, the better!

OK, boomer.

rehajm said...

And it is not the tax changes driving the problem. Federal receipts are way up, which is what happens during an expansion. Expenditures are way upper.

Way upper indeed! While lefties will wail at this I've looked at the numbers- tax receipts as a percentage of GDP are fairly steady year to year regardless of tax policy. There are a few outlier years but they tend to be in strong IPO years, like when Google went public. If you're looking to maximize government revenue the best rate is one that maximizes GDP...

...blindly raising tax rates and claiming it's to raise more revenue is a dumb idea. We see lefties claiming how much money it will raise to two decimal points of accuracy. What they fail to understand (or acknowledge) is people change their behavior as a result of the change in tax policy. People respond to incentives. Thus independent of other growth factors tax increases tend to result in less revenue than a static score would predict.

john said...

I didnt look. Is there proper funding for a new aircraft carrier this year?

rehajm said...

There is no voice in Washington for fiscal responsibility.

A few months back I was surprised to hear a few commenters here talk about Blue Dog Democrats. I assumed Obama had sent them all to kill shelters.

MadisonMan said...

I remember when the debt was a measly trillion.

Tank said...

I used to worry about the debt and the deficit, but no one else seems to, so why should I? Apparently, the answer to my question: how many years in a row can we borrow a trillion dollars? is: an unlimited number. It obviously makes no difference. We keep spending and spending and borrowing and borrowing and Wall Street doesn't care and Main Street doesn't care and the politicians in Washington don't care and the public is not clamoring for reform so...whatever.

Fernandinande said...

[debt] now exceeds $23 trillion.

Now exceeds $70,000.00 for each of the 320 million people in the US.

pacwest said...

Paul Volcker is dead.

Larry J said...

Here's an honest question that I'd love to have answered: When was the last time Congress passed the proper budget and appropriations legislation?

Ok, here's a follow up question: When was the last time Congress passed all of the budget and appropriations legislation before the start of the fiscal year?

I keep hearing about one continuing resolution after another but it's hard to find actual budgets being passed. That's one of the most fundamental responsibilities of Congress. Continuing resolutions are massive bills that have to be passed or the government shuts down. They're usually packed with pork spending.

pacwest said...

Vote for me. I will raise the Social Security age to 72. Public employee contracts will be changed to 72 also. I will eliminate Medicare/aid. I will cut military spending by 10% a year until it is half of what it is. It's a winning platform for sure.

Boomers?

Birkel said...

As might be guessed, I agree with the majority of the first 31 comments that I can see.

The simple fact is that the American people, taken as a whole, believe the programs they desire are necessary. There are specific constituencies for the spending who become vocal when their preferred programs are threatened. There is no constituency for cuts. That's just the way it is. And that means the incentives for politicians is to increase spending.

The problem is us.

Amadeus 48 said...

Pacwest has caught the zeitgeist perfectly.

If total obligations were limited to $23 trillion, that would be one thing. But there is another $46 trillion plus that is off the books--the unfunded projected obligations under social security and medicare/medicaid. So the total national obligations are $69 trillion.

To scale one trillion, think of spending one dollar per second. If you did that, it would take you 32,000 YEARS to spend one trillion dollars. 32,000 years ago there was a mile of ice where I am sitting now, and humans had not yet discovered agriculture. And that is one trillion dollars at a dollar per second.

rehajm said...

how many years in a row can we borrow a trillion dollars? is: an unlimited number.

'How did you go bankrupt?' Bill asked.

'Two ways', Mike said. 'Gradually and then suddenly'.

daskol said...

Fiscally irresponsible, but politically deft in at least two ways: longer term, the populist effusion on "the right" is successful to the extent it can persuade people it cares about kitchen table stuff, something Boris Johnson embraced along with the NHS and silly green stuff (which is very popular in Europe), defanging progressives who attack the right still for its corporatist, big business chamber of commerce "capitalism." Deft in the short run because Trump can rub this bipartisan legislative achievement in the faces of the "orange man bad"/must be removed crowd. Makes it hard to take seriously the claim that he must be removed in the interest of the country if both parties are collaborating on massive legislation. There's no incentive for our leaders to bend the spending curve, quite the opposite.

Michael K said...

I keep hearing about one continuing resolution after another but it's hard to find actual budgets being passed.

Paul Ryan was going to do that before he discovered Trump was president and ran for the hills. The hills, of course, being a lobbyist job.

The Democrats of the 80s allowed Reagan to win the Cold War as long as he let them spend.

Howard said...

Well, you people wanted to impeach the last president who balanced the budget. Everyone knows that the Republicans are the most wasteful and that written spenders in all of human history

Amadeus 48 said...

Howard--Clinton and Gingrich were a great combo. The era of big government is over!

rcocean said...

The usual slanted report from the DNC- WaPo Defense spending had gone up $10 billion, the domestic spending has gone up $100 Billion. But Wapo treats them as equals.

rcocean said...

The failure of Congress to pass a proper budget can be laid at the feet of the D's. Sorry, I know you don't want to hear that. You want to blame both sides. But the R's have accepted it, and now use it shield themselves from the public wrath. All the Donor's wishes are put in the big omnibus bill and then passed by both parties before we know anything about it

And of course, there's ZERO for a border wall or immigration enforcement.

rcocean said...

Waiting for all the Never trumpers to crucify Pelosi, since they CARE SO MUCH about "small government". Yeah.

Big Mike said...

The problem is Train v. City of New York, an 8 - 0 ruling by the Burger Supreme Court that forbids a President to impound (not spend) money appropriated by Congress. This happened (IIRC) in 1974 while Dick Nixon was in the White House. The ruling convinced me then (and I continue to believe today) that unpopular Presidents make for bad Supreme Court precedents.

Jim at said...

Once upon a time, we had a TEA party... and the left immediately deemed it racist.

The end.

Rabel said...

What's wrong with Pelosi's nose?