They really think we’re stupid.
I’m talking about the Republican Party, of course.
Their propensity to lie to us must come from their belief that we’re either too unaware or too dumb to figure out when they’re not telling the truth – which is most of the time.
And so it is with the proposed balanced budget amendment that failed in the House earlier this month.
It got 233 yes votes and 184 no votes, which would be good enough to pass regular legislation. But since it’s a proposed amendment to the Constitution it needed two-thirds support – 290 votes.
It would then need two-thirds support in the Senate and ratification by two-thirds of our states, so it was far from assured even if the House had approved it by a sufficient margin.
The Republicans think their latest dog-and-pony show will convince us of their fiscal responsibility, and it might if we simply suspend reality and ignore everything else they’ve done since they’ve gotten control of both houses of Congress and the White House.
In December they passed a tax bill skewed heavily to benefit corporations and the rich, then followed that up with a two-year, $1.3 trillion budget agreement.
An updated forecast released by the Congressional Budget Office projects our deficit to grow $11.7 trillion over the next decade, in part because of these two pieces of legislation. The deficit currently stands at over $21 trillion.
Even some of their own have criticized them for their latest act of phoniness.
It’s bad enough our elected officials, and this includes some Democrats, have so little regard for us that they just make things up. That’s just having unmitigated gall. There’s also an evil component to a balanced budget amendment – The Right’s hatred for the poor and middle class, immigrants and minorities.
Armed with a balanced budget amendment and what you can expect would be a strong reluctance to roll back tax cuts that mostly benefit themselves and their rich donors and friends, the GOP would then be even more emboldened to take aim at Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the social safety net programs.
I don’t know if you’d call it a back-door, side-door or front-door way to advance their class warfare agenda and achieve their long-term goal of crushing the poor and middle class in order to reap greater benefits for the rich.
After all, they would point out that they were just following the Constitution.
Of course, the folly is no one is forcing them to cut taxes and increase spending. They do it because it’s politically expedient and personally beneficial, ignoring their responsibility to be honest and conscientious stewards of our country.
You have to address the deficit by both increasing revenues and cutting expenses. You’re not going to cut your way out of it while the rich reap great benefits out of your tax policy.
It’s like saying we eat too much pie in this country, so we should make sure the elderly and poor don’t get any more pie. (As a personal aside, I really like pie.)
This illustrates that there’s only one way to have legislators that tax and spend responsibility, without leaving the poorest of us behind.
You elect them.
See you in November.
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