What do you do when you're a Republican and are facing a potentially massive wave against you in the next election? When you've just passed a $1.8 trillion tax cut and a $1.3 trillion spending bill busting all budget caps and you call yourself the party of fiscal responsibility? You fall back on one of the oldest political gimmicks on the books: a balanced budget amendment.
HOUSE REPUBLICANS will take up a balanced-budget amendment when they return from recess, several sources tell us. This follows on the heels of their $1.3-trillion budget bill and their massive tax bill. WHY DO THIS NOW? Here's what we think: It’s almost election season, and it would be helpful if GOP lawmakers could go home and be able to say they voted to support balancing the federal budget, even though they voted boosted discretionary spending by a ton, and have not touched entitlement spending, which, they have said for years, is the driver of U.S. budget deficits.
They can't touch social insurance spending months before an election. But they can talk about the silver bullet solution for all people who don't want to bother to figure out how government works. In other words, their president. The guy who thinks he can just take money from the defense budget to build his wall, never mind how the appropriations process works. And the tea party voters who will always be wiling to overlook things like what their heroes have actually done about the deficit.
But there's a more malignant undercurrent at work here and that's the plan that Republicans have had in mind from the minute they decided to blow up the deficit—creating the impetus to make massive cuts to domestic spending. Specifically attacking Social Security and Medicare. Because that's what they do.
