No really, the GOP is the party of fiscal responsibility!

Having assumed the majority in the House of Representatives, Republicans led by Speaker John Boehner implemented some new rules to the House, ostensibly to restore fiscal order to our nation’s budget. Among the rules implemented by House Republicans is a rule replacing the previous “pay-as-you-go” requirements for legislation with a “cut-as-you-go” requirement. The rule would prohibit consideration of a bill, joint resolution, conference report, or amendment that has the net effect of increasing mandatory spending within a five-year or ten-year budget window without an equivalent cut somewhere within the federal budget.

However, in their eagerness to repeal the health care reform legislation signed into law last year by President Obama, Republicans have conveniently decided to make a special “exception” (or they’ve just flip-flopped, whichever you prefer) in their budget rules to repeal the Democrats’ health care overhaul. If a repeal of the Democratic health care overhaul is successful, an estimated $230 billion would be added to the federal debt by 2021, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

In addition to making an exception to their fiscal responsibility rules for their planned repeal of health care reform, Republicans are also making more exceptions to those same fiscal responsibility rules for further action on the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, an AMT patch, and extending the estate tax, among others, all of which would increase the budget deficit dramatically.

In other words, ballooning the federal budget deficit for more tax cuts for big businesses and the top one percent of wage earners is perfectly fine, but spending even a nickel on infrastructure projects by increasing the gas tax would be forbidden, even if the net result would be a reduction in the deficit.

The idea that House Republicans are all about “fiscal responsibility” is beyond being a joke; it’s a farce.

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1 thought on “No really, the GOP is the party of fiscal responsibility!

  1. I agree that exempting Tax Cuts is a bad. Tax Cuts must also be paid for by corresponding program cuts as well. That SHOULD be a no brainer.

    However, this canard that you guys keep floating that repealing ObamaCare is an exception… well… its an exception in name only. While the CBO put out those numbers regarding the debt… they are jinned up numbers. Some of those “reductions” came from double counting Social Security numbers. Much of that came from not implementing the Doc Fix… which was then passed later in a separate bill, which killed those “reductions”. The CBO couldn’t score it that way, because the CBO could only score the bill put in front of them.

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