The Federal Budget Status: Interesting Read

If you have a checking account and a credit card, then you know how important it is to have money coming in. Since the Trump administration bestowed massive tax cuts to the rich, the deficit has been growing like crazy. Now, the GOP in the House of Representatives want to cut everything EXCEPT those tax cuts, while not touching the Military and correctly leaving social security and medicare alone.  If they drop those tax cuts, they can balance the budget. If they don't, they can't. Here's the story.

Budget officials tell Republicans what they don’t want to hear

As House Republican leaders pursue a wildly unrealistic budget plan, the Congressional Budget Office has produced some inconvenient truths for the GOP.

March 15, 2023, 9:32 AM EDT NBC By Steve Benen

House Republican leaders do not yet have a budget plan of their own, but in broad strokes, they have a relatively specific goal in mind: The new House GOP majority wants to balance the budget in 10 years while protecting Trump-era tax breaks, and without touching Medicare and Social Security. Much of the party also insists on shielding funding for the Pentagon and veterans.

A Washington Post report last week noted that Dan Meyer, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s chief of staff, has privately expressed concern that meeting such a goal “will prove difficult, if not impossible.” The article added that Meyer recently marveled at “the seeming absurdity” of the circumstances.

This might’ve been understating the case. Politico reported:

A new analysis from federal budget experts that illustrates what they say is the mathematical impossibility of GOP plans to balance the federal budget over 10 years, while extending Trump-era tax cuts and leaving Social Security, Medicare, defense and veterans benefits intact.

(Image; To Refresh your Memory of the massive tax Cut the rich received from the Trump administration . Credit: Center on Budget and Policy priorities) 

HOW CAN THEY POSSIBLY DO IT? According to a Congressional Budget Office analysis released yesterday, if Republicans want to balance the budget within 10 years, without touching entitlements, military spending, or veterans care, they’d have to cut 86% of federal spending on everything else.

And by “everything else,” I’m being quite literal. To make the budget arithmetic work, Congress would have to cut 86% of federal spending on border security. And agriculture. And air-traffic control. And law enforcement. And environmental protections. And a few thousand other priorities that benefit Americans every day.

What’s more, that 86% figure is based on the assumption that Trump-era tax cuts would be allowed to lapse altogether. If Republicans intend to keep the ineffective Trump-era tax breaks in place — and we already know they do — then the budget math collapses altogether: 

BOTTOM LINE:  Congress could cut 100% of “everything else,” and by the CBO’s estimates, the budget still wouldn’t balance in 10 years.

Politico’s report added that two Democratic senators — Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, and Oregon’s Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee — requested the CBO report and eagerly touted the findings.

“As this analysis shows, no amount of cuts can make their math add up,” Whitehouse said in a statement. “It is a farce.” Wyden added, “These numbers show that Speaker McCarthy made impossible promises to land his job, and that’s seriously alarming with a catastrophic default getting closer every day.”

This appears to leave the House Republican leadership with a small handful of choices.

They can give up on their unrealistic goal. They can keep their goal, but propose cuts to social insurance programs and the military. They can keep their goal, but agree to roll back ineffective Trump-era tax cuts.