Shot in the Dark

Resolution

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I confidently predicted Trump would force a government shutdown to compel real cuts in spending, which is why he had the D0GE team hunting for a trillion dollars of fraud, waste and abuse.  But Trump supports a continuing resolution which increases defense spending by $6 billion, cuts other spending by $13 billion, and leaves the rest of the spending in place, financed by borrowed money.  

Shaving a lousy $7 billion off $7 trillion won’t balance the budget. We will still have a $2 Trillion dollar deficit and interest on the debt will still be more than we spend on defense.  This continuing resolution is like claiming to be dieting by eating one less french fry in your Happy Meal.  It’s worse than a joke. It’s an insult.  I’m insulted. 

My buddy claims I just don’t understand Trump’s strategy and the scope of everything he’s dealing with.  He wanted Congress to do a real budget before he was seated.  He wanted them to do the cuts under Biden.  But of course Congress simply kicked the can and made the problem come due a few weeks into Trump’s term.  

My buddy says Trump’s not giving up the fight, he’s merely pushing it out a few months while inflation tames; while the fraud and waste gets identified and publicized; while he gets the Hawaiian judges’ orders overturned; while he ends the money laundry in Ukraine; while he knocks some sense into Mexico and Canada; while he secures the border; while he gets the rest of his cabinet installed; while he claws back billions, if not trillions shoveled out the windows just before he took office ….

I sure hope he’s right.  Otherwise, it looks as if the Democrats and RINOs won this round, dragging us one step closer to the fiscal cliff.  Dang, and I was so hopeful.

Joe Doakes

 

Until someone has the guts to go after the big entitlement programs, it’s all performance.  The best case is that Trump curbs the chaos long enough for the economy to switch to “puree”, which might forestall but not prevent the inevitable reckoning. 

Can we get to that without getting to this?   Or will events and Democrats stall Trump long enough that a recession tanks Trump in the. mid-terms, and sparks a leftist backlash?

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Mitch Berg

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5 responses to “Resolution”

  1. SmithStCrx Avatar
    SmithStCrx

    The best argument I can make about this situation is;
    This Budget should’ve been passed before the Election, much less before Trump took Office. Instead, the previous Congress passed a couple of short-term CRs, the latest into March. The GOP claimed it would allow Trump 8 weeks to get into Office, start filling his Cabinet, and get HIS Budget passed for the remainder FY 2025 passed. OTOH, I’m sure the Democrats knew they were handing over a ticking time bomb hoping it would blow up just as the Trump Administration was getting into things. Instead, the GOP managed to “defuse” that time bomb and pass the remainder of FY 2025 with a relatively budget (tried googling the numbers and can’t find totals).
    In an inflationary economy, a flat budget is actually a cut, but as Joe says, that like cutting out 1 fry from the meal.

    The 2 things (with sub-points) I’m looking for in the near future are,
    1) The actual FY 2026 Budget (not the 10 year plan). Are there actual, substantive cuts made to the Budget? Are the personal income tax cuts made permanent? Does SALT come back? (Can Trump and Johnson put forward a Budget that gets Rep. Massie and Sen. Paul onboard without losing too many “moderates” from the other side of the GOP Caucuses?)
    2) Does Trump use Recission to go back into the FY 2025 Budget and implement the DOGE cuts? Remember, that only needs a majority vote in both bodies, so no Democrats needed to get past the Filibuster.

    I’d have liked to have seen actual fiscal reforms already, but that wouldn’t have gotten any Democrat votes for Cloture, and it may have used up the GOP’s one use of Reconciliation for the year. I can live with this result, for now, while withholding final judgment.

  2. John "Bigman" Jones Avatar
    John “Bigman” Jones

    Smith, I agree with your point about an inflationary economy.

    My point remains: 1% of 7 Trillion would be $70 Billion. This resolution is cutting $7 Billion. That is 1/10 of 1%. And people are acting like it’s the end of the world. It’s not, it’s trivial, it’s political theater.

  3. nerdbert Avatar
    nerdbert

    Look, I’m just happy that ANY part of the budget had a negative sign on a part of its growth. I never thought I’d see that, especially under Trump whose first term was a hold-my-beer growth of the budget.

    I’ll take gutting the fraud, waste, and abuse part of the current budget as a starter. I’d love more, but I’ve never seen it in my lifetime so I have few hopes that the budget will go down. I’ll take keeping it from growing for a few years so that the economy might be able to support what spending we’re actually doing now.

    As for “entitlements”, I fully expect them to r*pe 401(k)s and IRAs to pay for the upcoming trainwreck for a few more years, and then a total collapse of that system. We can’t afford those payments in a demographic stall, especially with all the lard and extras that SS and Medicare have had added in since their inception. We would do so much better with a forced retirement saving system like Chile used to have, but change will be impossible politically before total collapse.

  4. SmithStCrx Avatar
    SmithStCrx

    John,
    Your absolutely correct that the cuts that are in the CR are trivial. I’d have loved to see more. If Recission isn’t used to codify the cuts that DOGE is identifying and if the FY 2026 Budget is another example of kicking the can down the road, then I’ll restart my complaints. Until then I’ll take the tepid position that it could’ve been worse. The Democrats could have had their act together last year and passed an actual FY 2025 Budget that was $8T-$9T instead of the CRs they were hoping to catch the GOP with.
    Think of it in sports terms. The 2024 Congress ended but the Budget game went into overtime. The GOP has managed to push it to double overtime this month. Recission would be the game winner, but no additional cuts would probably mean the game ends in a tie, if not an actual Democrat win because they’ve been blowing out the Budget for years. It’s not fantastic, but it’s not over yet.

    And the Special Elections in the House are going to start soon. That should push the GOP majority back up a bit.

  5. bosshoss429 Avatar
    bosshoss429

    Just announced that the U.S. had the lowest number of border crossings since 1963.

    Egg and gas prices are dropping. I just got gas in Inver Grove Heights for $2.78.

    Some economics people have posited fairly well, that we’ve been in a recession since 2022.
    https://www.ntd.com/us-in-recession-since-2022-after-inflation-adjustments-new-research-shows_1021967.html

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