Thursday, December 22, 2016

Freedom Caucus Buckles: Will Allow Trump Deficits to Explode

Freedom Caucus, the closest thing to a limited government group in the House, appears to have been co-opted by the Trump operation and is going to lift its concerns about growing government deficits.

Tim Albert writes at National Review:
Trump’s ideology is disjointed at best and his core philosophy on the appropriate role of government is anyone’s guess. So while his presidency represents a prime opportunity for conservatives to influence the direction of the party and the country, it also threatens to redefine Republicanism in a way that is hostile toward traditional concepts of limited government...

[O]ne-party rule has a way of silencing dissent, especially if the president has sustained popularity with the base. It’s hardly a stretch to imagine Trump spending his first year amassing voter goodwill by passing robust tax cuts and approving a massive, shovel-ready infrastructure package, only to steadily grow the size of government (and the power of the executive) while daring congressional Republicans to stop him. Everyone knows George W. Bush doubled the national debt; not everyone recalls that his first OMB director was Mitch Daniels, perhaps the most revered fiscal hawk of his generation....

Consider Trump’s stated intention to seek a $1 trillion dollar infrastructure package soon after taking office. At a conservative forum one week after the election, {House and Freedom Caucua member Raul] Labrador told reporters that any such bill “has to be paid for” with spending cuts or revenues from elsewhere, “and if Trump doesn’t find a way to pay for it, the majority of us, if not all of us, are going to vote against it.” Otherwise, conservatives reasoned, it would be no different than the Obama stimulus package they once railed against. But their thinking has shifted in the weeks since. According to several members, there has been informal talk of accepting a bill that’s only 50 percent paid for, with the rest of the borrowing being offset down the road by “economic growth.” It’s an arrangement Republicans would never have endorsed under a President Hillary Clinton...

Pfft. Some drain the swamp revolution Trump is leading.

 -RW

3 comments:

  1. and the "paid for" part will be based on mathematical nonsense that will not materialize, while the cost of everything will skyrocket as crony businesses line up to get paid 50% more for 1/2 the work.

    This is gonna hurt.

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  2. What about Amash's Liberty Caucus?

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  3. Justin Amash says on December 21st, "This is false. Anonymous sources may have said this to @TimAlberta, but it's not the position of the @freedomcaucus board."
    https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/811789042572558337

    ReplyDelete