Republicans hoped to use their slim majority in the House of Representatives and the debt ceiling to force President Joe Biden and Democrats to make major cuts in federal safety net programs. They failed.

Why Republicans choked

The whole debt ceiling charade was a Republican concocted crisis. If Republicans really wanted to cut the deficit, they had a perfect opportunity the first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency when they controlled the House and Senate. Instead, they cut taxes for rich people and raised the deficit from $571.6 billion in Trump’s first year in office (2017) to $982.1 billion in 2018. In 2019, they increased the deficit again, this time to $1.16 trillion. In 2020, after Trump’s disastrous mismanagement of the COVID pandemic devastated the economy, the deficit ballooned to an all-time-record $3.0 trillion. (Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 3.2 Federal Government Current receipts and Expenditures, Line 49, Net ending or borrowing. https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&categories=survey#eyJhcHBpZCI6MTksInN0ZXBzIjpbMSwyLDMsM10sImRhdGEiOltbImNhdGVnb3JpZXMiLCJTdXJ2ZXkiXSxbIk5JUEFfVGFibGVfTGlzdCIsIjg3Il0sWyJGaXJzdF9ZZWFyIiwiMjAxNiJdLFsiTGFzdF9ZZWFyIiwiMjAyMyJdLFsiU2NhbGUiLCItOSJdLFsiU2VyaWVzIiwiQSJdXX0=)

Back to the charade, if Biden wanted to play hardball with the Republicans, he could have held out until just before the US would have defaulted on our debt. He could have forced an up-or-down vote in the House to raise the debt ceiling with no spending concessions.

Republicans hold a five-seat majority in the House. Three Republicans defecting to prevent economic Armageddon would have scuttled the Republican plan. Republicans would have been left with nothing.

Republicans would probably have dumped Speaker Kevin McCarthy and shut down Congress for weeks or months trying to elect a new speaker. Biden evidently decided to go through the motions of negotiating with McCarthy, throw the Republicans a few crumbs, save them embarrassment and keep Congress functioning.

Deficit reduction or satiating Republican voter’s hatred and racism?

The Republican deficit reduction plan passed in the House never was about cutting the deficit. It only intended to slow future increases in our deficit. The Republican farce really was about satiating Republican voter hatred towards poor people (more specifically, Black people) and cutting health care, housing and food stamps for them. Republican spending cuts were focused on the poorest and most economically vulnerable people in the US.  Republicans in the House voted unanimously for this disaster.

Unfortunately for deficit reduction, the safety net programs Republicans targeted aren’t big dollar items, compared to government spending as a whole. That is why Republicans talk about “ten-year savings” in their proposal. Divide their budget savings by ten and then compare them to our 2022 annual federal government spending balance of -$1.1 trillion or 2022 total spending of $6.17 trillion and you get the idea. (Source Bureau of Economic Analysis, above)

One of the Republican “non-negotiable” items was that poor people couldn’t obtain food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance or other federal benefits unless they are working a minimum number of hours per week. I can imagine how this proposal came from Republicans that inherited farms or ranches and never had to apply for a job in their life.

The inference is clear. Black people are lazy and all that is needed to get them off government programs and move them into jobs is ending their benefits.

In the real world, there are kids and sometimes elderly parents to take care of (that fall out of the range of parents with very young children that were to be exempted from the work requirements). Republicans love to complain about Black single mothers not working while at the same time complaining about single parents who don’t supervise their kids. You can’t have it both ways.

There are a myriad of other issues like transportation, physical and mental health issues and racism that poor Black people have to deal with that White, middle class Republicans can’t begin to fathom. And, while jobs are plentiful now, what happens when a Republican becomes president and unemployment shoots up to the 10 percent range like it has with every Republican president since 1980? God forbid, some of the people not eligible for health care, food stamps and other help might be White Republicans.

In the negotiated bill Biden signed into law, Republicans did get food stamp work requirements enacted for single people without children, aged 49-57. However, food stamp eligibility was expanded to homeless people, veterans and people aging out of foster care, all without work requirements. The net is more people are eligible for government help (without work requirements) after debt ceiling negotiations than before.

The hypocrisy

Republicans hate seeing people long term, living off the government It may be commendable to reduce people’s dependence on government. However, the hypocrisy is blatant when Republicans don’t have the same enthusiasm for cutting White, farmer welfare payments  There are no people more dependent on long-term government handouts than crop and dairy farmers. https://www.frugalron.com/are-us-farmers-the-real-welfare-kings-and-queens/

Perhaps if farmers’ government benefits were cut, farmers would become more responsible and take more pride in their self-sufficiency? Personally, I don’t care how deep farmers’ stick their snouts into the trough of government subsidies. All I ask is that if farmers think they are entitled  to subsidies, they show some compassion. Especially for those far worse off that need essentials like food, medical care and housing.

Republicans claim the programs they want to cut and farmer welfare programs are completely different. Yes, they are different. As different as black and white.

More cuts

Republicans also planned to cut federal spending to underfunded schools, which are predominantly in urban and rural neighborhoods populated by black and brown skinned people. Their proposal would cut approximately $4 billion in funding for schools serving low-income children, impacting an estimated 26 million students and reducing program funding to its lowest level in almost a decade—a cut equivalent to removing more than 60,000 teachers and specialized instructional support personnel from classrooms.

For good measure, The House Republican proposal would limit educators’ abilities to address student mental health issues, prevent violence, suicide, and drug abuse by cutting Title IV, Part A funding for schools by about $300 million. (Source: FACT SHEET: House Republican Proposals Hurt Children, Students, and Borrowers, and Undermine Education).

So much for Republican rhetoric about increased funding for mental health programs to stem gun violence in schools.

Republicans claim spending taxpayer money on these schools is futile since these extra dollars have not resulted in improved performance. That is not true.

From a Northwestern University study, “Low-income students benefit most from increased spending. On average, these students spent about six more months in school, were 10 percentage points more likely to graduate high school, had 13 percent higher wages as adults, and were 6 percentage points less likely to live in poverty. Farther out, their family income increased by 17 percent.” (Source: The Benefits of Increased School Spending; www.school-spending-policy-research=brief-jackson.pdf) This is only one of many peer reviewed, published studies that identify the benefits of increased spending in underfunded schools.

My observation is the reason Republicans don’t want to spend White taxpayer money on these schools is pure and simple. It is racism. Republicans don’t want to improve opportunities for kids of color. Republicans also believe money is better spent on schools with predominantly White kids because they are more intelligent. No data to back this up, but Republicans don’t need data to prove what they are sure is true.

Protect high income tax cheaters

Republicans also planned to gut the $80 billion increase in Internal Revenue Service funding that was part of the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022. The $80 billion is one investment that will actually have a return on investment; the government will get $200 billion back over ten years. Republicans want to derail the IRS funding increase to protect taxpayers making over $400,000 annually that cheat on their taxes. They aim to protect the rich from paying their fair share of taxes and throw the financial burden of funding government on schmucks that file W-2s and can’t cheat.

Republicans appear to have failed here also. Surprising how there was no public outcry to protect rich, tax cheaters?

From the New York Times, “Still, because of the leeway that the I.R.S. has over how and when it spends the money, the clawback might not affect the agency’s plans in the next few years. Officials said in a background call with reporters that they expected no disruptions whatsoever from the loss of that money in the short term.

That’s likely because all of the $80 billion from the 2022 law was appropriated at once, but the agency planned to spend it over eight years. Officials suggested the I.R.S. might simply pull forward some of the money earmarked for later years, then return to Congress later to ask for more money.” (Source: New York Times, New Details in Debt Limit Deal: Where $136 Billion in Cuts Will Come From https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/29/business/debt-ceiling-agreement.html)

The ultimate government boondoggle

Republicans specifically made an exception so ethanol subsidies wouldn’t be a part of their domestic spending cuts. In fact, they authorized more government funding to help ethanol producers convert production to supplement jet fuel instead of just automobile fuel.

What this means to consumers is that we have higher gas prices because of government ethanol mandates. For farmers, it means much higher corn prices because they now burn up 45 percent of their crop in ethanol.  Because of tax breaks to ethanol producers, it means bigger government deficits. For the environment, it means increased contributions to climate change because ethanol is 24 percent more carbon intensive than gasoline. https://news.wisc.edu/at-bioenergy-crossroads-should-corn-ethanol-be-left-in-the-rearview-mirror/

While Republicans preach “smaller government”, ethanol is an example of big government over-reach, favoritism and their hypocrisy. While Republicans have no problem subsidizing a climate harmful industry while jacking up corn prices, they have no problem cutting government benefits for the US citizens that need help most.

Slower economic growth

Besides being ineffective in cutting the deficit and discriminatory by forcing all the cuts on poor people least able to afford them, the Republican plan would be bad for the economy. According to Reuters, “A Republican plan to cut federal spending in exchange for lifting the U.S. government’s debt ceiling would lower employment, slow economic growth and “meaningfully increase” the likelihood of a recession,” Moody’s Analytics’ chief economist told a Senate committee on Thursday.

Mark Zandi told the Senate Budget Committee that U.S. GDP growth would be 1.61% in 2024 if the Republican plan were enacted, compared with 2.23% otherwise, and lead to 790,000 fewer jobs.” https://www.reuters.com/world/us/amid-us-debt-ceiling-standoff-senate-democrats-dissect-republican-plan-2023-05-04/

Slow growth, job losses and increasing unemployment rates do not concern Republicans. Donald Trump had the lowest annual percentage GDP growth during his term and the lowest number of jobs created of any administration since those records were first kept in the 1930’s. Trump also increased the Unemployment rate from 4.7 to 6.3 percent (a 34 percent increase) during his time in office. Yet, Trump is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Success for Republican politicians is measured by what they’ve done to keep the US white and what they’ve done to make Black people’s lives more miserable. No better example of the latter than the Republican “deficit reduction plan”.

More blame…

Democrats deserve blame for their inability to balance the federal budget in the two years they controlled the House, Senate and presidency from 2021-23. Over the last 40 years, the Reagan/Bush I, Bush II and Trump Administrations all had huge deficits that increased dramatically during their terms and each ended in recession. Conversely, the Clinton and Obama presidencies slashed deficits and ended with dramatically lower unemployment at the end of their terms. They also had rapidly growing economies. Clinton had a $153 billion budget surplus after enacting a tax increase early in his presidency and left office with an even stronger economy than Obama’s.

Republicans have an excuse for not being able to figure this out. Democrats don’t; they should be bright enough to make the connection. If Biden and Democrats had balanced the budget by raising taxes on those most able to afford it, they would have given us stable, recession free growth (based on the Clinton and Obama record). They probably would have also reduced inflation.

A balanced federal budget would bring more jobs back to the US since every country’s trade balance equals the sum of government and private savings. Changing federal government savings from a $ trillion negative to a positive balance would have a huge impact on our trade balance.

Yes, Biden cut the federal budget deficit from $3.1 trillion in Trump’s last year in office to $1.1 trillion in 2022. And yes, Frugal Ron admits to being a real conservative and admits to his bias for an end to huge government deficits.

Yet it is obvious. When conservative policies are enacted to lower the deficit during a presidential term, we get increased growth and lower unemployment. The fact is that a $1.1 trillion deficit is far too high. Unfortunately, we won’t have another opportunity to lower it until after the 2024 election.  Hopefully Democrats will control the presidency, Congress and the Senate with big enough majorities to enact tax increases on those most able to afford it.

Destroying the Republican tax cut fantasy

Tax cuts for rich people do not pay for themselves. Republicans claim that after they cut taxes, tax revenue returns to the previous level in a few years. This is misleading. It is more accurate to use annual tax revenue data from before a Republican tax cut and use those values to draw a trend line into the future. When you compare the actual tax revenue after the cut to the trend line, the difference closely matches our annual deficits, in the period up to the next Republican tax cut. This is why Republican presidencies since 1980 all have huge deficits.

The math doesn’t lie. We can’t eliminate our deficits by cutting spending. Congressional Republicans campaigned promising they could find enough spending cuts to balance the budget. They failed spectacularly. Republican tax cuts for rich people got us into this mess and only tax increases on those most able to pay will get us out.

We cannot indefinitely continue running outsized federal government spending deficits. Rather than ineffectively balancing our budget by cutting support for our poorest citizens, it makes much more sense to balance our spending by taxing our richest ones. The top 10 percent of wealthiest US households have $52 trillion of wealth. The other 90 percent have $44 trillion. (Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/#quarter:133;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:all;units:levels) The richest people profit most from our capitalist system. They are the individuals that gain the most from preserving it. They should be willing to pay to protect the system.

Morality

The Republican deficit reduction plan was ineffective, racist and would have resulted in lower economic growth. It was immoral by placing the burden on poor (Black) people while sparing the rich and the favored (farmers) from any pain. What makes this truly hypocritical is that the plan was promoted by Republicans, who seem to believe they are “God’s Party”.

Christian hypocrisy didn’t begin with Donald Trump. I remember growing up in rural, west-central Wisconsin and figuring out decades ago that if I wanted to meet real Christians, the last place I wanted to look was the local Taylor Lutheran Church on a Sunday morning.

So, I guess I’m not surprised that people claiming they are Christians would take away food, medical care and shelter from the poor. At the same time claiming to believe: “For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.” Deuteronomy 15:11

For Republicans, that take joy in making Black people’s lives more miserable, I guess they missed the following verse; “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.”  Romans 15:1

Seems like Jesus was questioning Republicans when he asked, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” 1 John 3:17

Nothing in the Bible seems to advocate taking from the poor and then expecting the poor to go out and immediately find jobs or a better job. Nowhere does the Bible describe that as charity.

While Republicans seem to think rich people are sacred and government should do everything to preserve their wealth, the Scriptures seem to look at this differently. “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” Mark 10:21-22

Republicans wanted to use deficit reduction as an excuse to hinder the IRS from going after wealthy tax cheaters. The Bible also speaks of tax collectors. The Disciple Paul (later St. Paul), who once was a tax collector said, “That is also why you pay taxes, because the authorities are working for God when they fulfill their duties. Pay, then, what you owe them; pay your personal and property taxes and show respect and honor for them all.” Romans 13:6-7

God makes it clear that government officials are to deliver justice and assistance to the poor. “May they judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice! May they defend the cause of the poor and give deliverance to the children of the needy…” Psalms 72:2,4

How does a religion, that in both the Old and New Testaments, continually tells rich people to give up their wealth to the poor to gain eternal happiness wind up being the religion of a political party that protects rich people’s wealth and takes food housing and medical care from the poor? And, how does an out-and-out socialist like Jesus Christ become the deity of today’s Republicans?

How does one correlate separating 3,900 brown skinned children from their parents (that came to the US legally applying for asylum) with supposed fealty to a religion that espouses, “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God”. Leviticus 19:33-34. Or,

“The LORD watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.” Psalm 146:9

And last: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,  and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7. I’m completely at a loss for how Republicans somehow interpreted this as life begins at conception.

I keep having this recurring vision of an army of racist, make-believe Christians marching along, waving their Bibles, praying, reciting Bible chants, singing church songs and following their true Messiah, Donald Trump, on a one-way trip straight through the Gates of Hell. My vision, my story.

Summing-up

The Republican deficit reduction plan:

• Would not have reduced our current deficit.
• Would have slowed economic growth.
• Would have increased unemployment.
• Would have harmed educational results in underfunded schools.
  • Long term, would result in lower productivity in those students.
  • Long term, would result in lower taxable income from those students.
• Would have deprived poorest citizens of food, health care and housing.
• Would have continued the concentration of wealth in the US by shielding the wealthy from tax increases.

It is impossible to ignore the racism in the Republican plan. They concentrated all the pain of their spending cuts on the poorest, most vulnerable people. A disproportionate number of the people most harmed are Black. This is morally reprehensible. It is especially reprehensible to real Christians and Christian values.

This simply reinforces a point made often on this website. Being a Republican and a real Christian are mutually exclusive. You can be one or the other, but you can’t be both.

Moving along, the Republican deficit reduction plan is also fiscally irresponsible. We aren’t going to get rid of our federal government’s deficit without some serious tax increases.

The Republican deficit reduction plan was not pushed through by a fringe minority of Republicans. All Republicans in the House of Representatives voted for it. Republicans own this, whether when running for reelection or on their Judgement Day, if they believe in such a thing.

The good news is the Republican plan got little public support and failed. I like to think this is another sign that the silent majority of Americans believe, “Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.” Philippians 2:4.

This whole fiasco has shown that Republicans are not a real political party that can be a partner in true deficit reduction. Congressional Republicans are an extension of Donald Trump’s mob of January 6, 2021. Remember, 139 of these House Republicans voted against certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. They can hardly be expected to support the reality of real deficit reduction.

Republicans are an angry mob of White racists trying to turn back the clock 75 years for women, minorities, Jews, Muslims, LGBT+ and anyone else that doesn’t fit into their mold. We can’t change these people from hating. But, by getting out and voting for Democrats every chance we get, we can make sure they never have enough power to legislate their hatred.