Donald Trump woke up on Friday, March 23, and realized that a deficit-ballooning $1.3 trillion “omnibus” spending bill was awaiting his signature. The law increases defense spending but otherwise completely fulfills the spending priorities of the Democratic minority. Some have even said that the omnibus was “Barack Obama’s budget.”
Suddenly distressed by the “crazy” bill, the president snorted and pawed the ground. He threatened to veto the measure, panicking Washington for a few hours until aides were able to summon Defense Secretary James Mattis to talk Trump off the ledge.
He signed it.
It fully funds Planned Parenthood. It increases outlays for Pell Grants and Head Start, and it boosts funding for the Department of Labor and the Department of Education not only above the requests Trump had made but above the levels in Obama’s last budget. It fails to deregulate the private health insurance market or to reform federal permitting rules on construction projects. Not a single agency was eliminated, though Trump’s original budget proposal had called for 18 to be scrapped. It makes no changes to entitlement programs. And oh, here’s something interesting: It actually forbids construction of a border wall in the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in the Rio Grande Valley — the very place Trump supposedly wants to begin construction.
From a conservative perspective, there was almost nothing to like in this budget. Yet what did Trump single out as the reason he was miffed? Leaving “800,000 plus DACA recipients … totally abandoned by the Democrats.”
OK. Look, the premise of Trump’s entire campaign was that he was a brilliant dealmaker and a real boss who knew how to get things done. But he hadn’t a clue as to how to develop a budget and achieve his priorities through the legislative process.
The president posed as the wounded party in this charade. Somehow a “crazy” process had landed a grotesque bill on his desk. He vowed that he would never sign another one. But did he make a single speech about the budget? Instead of carefully crafting a responsible budget that would begin to reduce deficits and debt, what was Trump doing? He was firing his secretary of state via tweet; feuding with his attorney general; holding campaign-style rallies; firing his lawyers; exchanging schoolyard taunts with Joe Biden that are beneath the dignity of the average 13-year-old; and congratulating Vladimir Putin on his “victory.”
As for the Republicans in Congress, a few voiced objections to the morbidly obese budget. But most Republicans had little difficulty quieting their consciences and voting for a bill that a Heritage Foundation analyst acknowledged “supercharges our growth in deficits and the debt.”
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan used to bring charts explaining the risk of a debt crisis to his town hall meetings. During the 2012 campaign, he used the “debt clock” as a prop, noting that it was not a “scorecard” and warning that the “debt will weigh down our country like an anchor.”
That Paul Ryan hasn’t been seen in some time.
Mitch McConnell warned in 2011 that “spending and debt” was “the nation’s biggest problem.” That McConnell has also been AWOL. If anyone knows of their whereabouts, please contact the authorities.
Both parties and the people who elected them are marching straight off a completely avoidable financial cliff.
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