There’s no doubt that the Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, DSA, socialist Democrats want to stop every budget item on the GOP list. And it’s a pretty fair chance that their goal is a government shutdown at the end of September, which they believe will damage the economy and reelect democratic majorities in the midterms.
They’re going to be wrong about that just like they are so wrong on every other policy question. And therefore, it’s understandable that Republicans in Congress are scrambling either to get a continuing resolution or a 3.0 budget reconciliation to get some important work done, including funding the military and the voter identification bill, and other priorities.
But, and here’s the big but, what’s being discussed is not a good budget strategy. Specifically it lacks progrowth tax reform and spending cuts. Offsets in spending, known on Capitol Hill as “pay fors,” are important.
The White House wants to sprinkle foreign spending assistance, well ok, let them pay for it. After all the work done by the Medicare chief, Mehmet Oz, and Vice President Vance on waste, fraud, and corruption for the whole healthcare Medicaid complex, where are the budget cutting results that will show genuine change to drain the swamp at Washington?
Or on the tax front, inflation has gone up 108 percent in the last nearly 30 years. Why aren’t they adjusting the capital gains exemption at least on the sale of homes, or why aren’t they inflation-indexing the capital gains tax, again at least on the sale of homes. Why should middle-class home owners have to be taxed on President Biden’s inflation? Or the Covid inflation?
Without budget reforms and tax reforms and a growthier approach to fiscal policy, even the best-intentioned Republicans are not going to have a Big Bang budget package that would generate serious interest from the grass roots come November. For Republicans, where’s the Big Bang tax and spending pro-growth budget package?
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