...from the Congressional Budget Office, which projected a budget deficit of $1 trillion in 2020, Republicans were already responding to the gap they created when they passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut. Their response, of course, isn’t to revisit the cuts they showered on the rich, but to cut the domestic spending that they and the Democrats agreed to when they passed a spending bill a couple of weeks ago.
Now the administration and its congressional enablers are looking at enacting an “enhanced rescission package” to roll back the portion of that spending directed at such frivolities as education and the environment. While the Senate customarily requires 60 votes to pass a bill, a rescission bill can pass with just 51 votes, which, through a happy GOP coincidence, is exactly the number of Republicans in the Senate (although the ailing John McCain hasn't been able to be in the Senate for the past several months).
The case for the rescission was recently made on Fox News by the new White House National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, who came to the job on the strength of his (very convincing) cable news performances as a supply-side simpleton. “It’s really not a bad idea to trim some spending,” Kudlow told Fox, “because, after all, spending can lead to deficits and spending interferes with the economy.”
Good thing those trillion-dollar tax cuts for the rich don't lead to deficits! Good thing, too, that Kudlow appreciates how spending on infrastructure and education can interfere with the economy (albeit, contra Kudlow, positively).
Endeavoring to rescind all that spending interference with the economy isn't the only thing the deficit-creating GOP senators and representatives will do to stop those pesky deficits. This week, they also plan to vote for a constitutional amendment to balance the budget—which, fortunately, requires a two-thirds vote for passage, meaning it won't pass. Balanced-budget amendments have become the last refuge of GOP tax-cutting scoundrels.
