And speaking of hypocrisy: remember when the GOP liked to tout itself as the "party of fiscal responsibility", and as the "party of law and order" (ignoring for the time being the racist undertones of that phrase)?
Exhibit A1:
"Aqua Buddha [aka Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY] was shocked—
shocked!—that his Republican colleagues suddenly became enamored of deficit spending. Of course, he had no problem a few weeks ago voting for the deficit-exploding tax cut of abomination, but 35 years of Republican economic orthodoxy holds that tax cuts increase revenue. Of course, this has been proven wrong every time the Republicans gain enough power to put this fantasy into practice, but Paul wasn’t speaking to that, either. He trotted out every cheap trick in his bag, mocking scientific studies with funny names, and he even summoned up the ghost of the late
William Proxmire, whose “Golden Fleece” awards were a comedy staple in the Senate during a different time.
And the whole thing was a preposterous farce. The bill was priced to move and all Paul accomplished, besides burnishing his rep among his several fans, was to inconvenience whoever it is that’s at work in the federal government at three in the morning. The bill finally passed both houses of Congress just as the sun was coming up, and the president* signed it as soon as it hit his desk. All that was left was the bitter recriminations.
The DACA beneficiaries are still out in the cold, their fates hanging on a promise from Mitch McConnell. (N.B.: McConnell’s promise was premised on the government’s staying open. Technically, of course, it didn’t, and McConnell is quite the weasel. If he wanted an out, he’s got one.) Republicans who still believe in the fiction that theirs is the party of “fiscal responsibility”—Bob Taft is dead, and he ain’t coming back, kids—are weeping and gnashing their teeth over what their party “stands for” any more. It stands for what it’s stood for ever since Ronald Reagan fed the party the monkeybrains. It stands for plutocracy and corporate
laissez-faire, with a leavening of sanctimony and a pinch of Jesus."
--
Esquire Magazine:
"It Was All a Giant Farce", by
Charles PierceExhibit A2:
"Even before the Trump tax cuts passed, the Congressional Budget Office was forecasting a $1.5 trillion deficit in 2027 as entitlement spending swells. How could that get as high as $2 trillion? The first step would be to extend individual tax cuts that are set to sunset after 2025, as the GOP vows to do. That could add about $150 billion to the 2027 deficit...
Here's another coming shock: The Trump tax legislation was supposed to cut government health care spending by $53 billion in 2027 by repealing the individual mandate, but ObamaCare may end up costing substantially more — not less — due to Trump's policies. Despite repeal of the individual mandate and a sign-up period for HealthCare.gov that was half as long, the number of people signing up for coverage barely fell from a year ago, and the total could end up being higher once unpaid enrollment is winnowed out, because millions more were eligible for free ObamaCare bronze plans this year...
Putting everything together, as deficits widen from tax cuts that don't expire, state and individual behavioral shifts that further reduce tax revenues, and higher-than-expected ObamaCare costs, debt service costs will balloon as well.
A new projection is out from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget that the annual federal deficit will hit $2.1 trillion in 2027 on the current trajectory, including a fuller range of tax extensions, disaster relief, a lifting of annual spending limits known as the sequester and all the additional debt service."
--
Investor's Business Daily, Jan. 11, 2018:
"Economy: Here Comes A $1 Trillion — Scratch That — $2 Trillion U.S. Federal Deficit"Exhibit B:
"When Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County sheriff, announced his Senate candidacy on Tuesday, he became the fourth viable Republican 2018 congressional candidate who’s been convicted of a crime. And like two of the other GOP cons running for office, he has cited his criminal record as a partial justification for his candidacy.
Arpaio was convicted of misdemeanor criminal contempt of court in July 2017 for defying a court order requiring him to stop illegally detaining people he suspected of being undocumented immigrants based on their race. President Donald Trump pardoned him one month later.
The other convicted criminals running for office as Republicans are Don Blankenship, the former head of the coal mining company Massey Energy who is running in the Republican primary to challenge Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.); former Rep. Michael Grimm, who is challenging incumbent Rep. Dan Donovan (R-N.Y.) to reclaim the Staten Island congressional seat he once held; and Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.), who is running for re-election.
Blankenship served one year in prison on a misdemeanor conviction for conspiring to evade safety laws after the death of 29 miners at his Upper Big Branch Mine in 2010. Grimm, a former FBI agent, pleaded guilty to felony tax evasion in 2014. And last year, Gianforte also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault for body-slamming a reporter days before winning a 2017 special election. So far, the national Republican Party has said it supports Donovan over Grimm, but it is also backing Gianforte, who is the only one of these convicted candidates currently in office. The party has not endorsed anyone in either West Virginia or Arizona.
The only Democrat with a record running for office is David Alcorn, convicted of stalking, who is one of nine candidates for the party’s nomination in New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee would not support Alcorn, saying 'he is not fit to run for office.'"
-- Huffington Post, Jan. 10, 2018:
"Republicans Have 4 Convicted Criminals Running For Congress In 2018"