The House Republican budget plan would
repeal Obamacare, cut a wide array of services, and generally set the stage for continued economic decline. President Obama is, unsurprisingly,
not a fan:
“Unfortunately, what we’re seeing right now is a failure to invest in education, infrastructure, research and national defense. All the things that we need to grow, need to create jobs, to stay at the forefront of innovation and to keep our country safe,” Obama told reporters at the White House as he met with Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny. [...]
“It’s not a budget that reflects the future. It’s not a budget that reflects growth. It’s not a budget that is going to help ensure that middle-class families are able to maintain security and stability and that people who are trying to get into the middle class are going to have the rungs on the ladder to get into the middle class,” Obama said.
Obama said he hopes that “ultimately we’ll find some compromises where together we are financing the education, the research, the training, the building of roads and bridges and ports, railways, all the things that we need to grow and put people back to work and make sure that the incredible momentum that our economy has built over the last several years continues well into the future.”
The problem is that Republicans definitely don't want to compromise, they don't want to invest in the middle class, and it's not even a sure thing that they care about the United States having bridges that don't fall down and roads that don't feel like a failed amusement park ride called Rattle and Thud.
Republicans are predictably yelling about balancing the budget, but by failing to invest in the future, they set the stage for budget-balancing to be more difficult with every passing year, as crumbling infrastructure and skyrocketing inequality undermine the American economy. And, the White House points out, Republicans are kicking the can down the road, postponing the vicious cuts necessary to balance the budget without, heaven forbid, increasing taxes on the wealthy so that voters won't see the impact of those cuts for a year or two. Until, say, 2017.