Rand Paul’s Sensible Budget Rejected, but Here’s the Silver Lining

Editor's Note:  There's a reason I keep the debt counter on P&D, which now shows a national debt of 21 trillion dollars.  It's to make sure no one reading this blog can ignore the crisis looming ahead.   Trump needed to get this budget through to increase the necessary spending for the military,  which is one of the actual and core responsibilities of the central government, but says he'll never sign another budget such as this one.  What will happen next budget?  I think we may well see a shutdown, and this time if it happens we'll have to see if Trump can be bullied by the Democrats,. RINO's and the media.  It will be interesting. RK

May 19, 2018 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty
 

During the election season, I speculated Trump was a big government Republican, and he confirmed my analysis this past February when he acquiesced to an orgy of new spending and agreed to bust the spending caps.



That awful spending spree gave huge increases to almost every part of the budget, and I pointed out that the deal probably will create the conditions for future tax hikes.

I got so upset at profligate GOPers that I crunched the numbers and revealed that (with the notable exception of Reagan) Republican presidents are even bigger spenders than Democrats.
Well, Senate Republicans recently had a chance to atone for their sins by voting for a proposal from Rand Paul to balance the budget.

So what did they do? Rejected it, of course.

In a column for Reason, Eric Boehm justly condemns Republicans for being big spenders.

The Senate on Thursday resoundingly rejected the Kentucky Republican’s plan to balance the federal budget by 2023, voting 76 to 21 against a bill that would have required a $400 billion cut in federal spending next year, followed by 1 percent spending increases for the rest of the next decade. …Paul’s proposal never really had a chance of passing, coming as it did just months after Congress approved enormous spending hikes that busted Obama-era caps once championed by Republicans as necessary for fiscal restraint. …Paul’s plan would have balanced the budget by 2023, as long as revenue met current CBO projections. By 2028, his proposal envisioned a $700 billion surplus instead of the $1.5 trillion deficit currently projected by the CBO.

A Lifezette column by Brendan Kirby was even more critical of big-government Republicans.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was hoping his Republican colleagues would be embarrassed by their vote to jack up federal spending earlier this year and support his plan to phase in a balanced budget. Few were. Paul got 20 other Republican senators on Thursday — less than half of the Senate GOP caucus — to vote for his “penny plan,” which would balance the federal budget over five years… No Democrats back the proposal. …Even though Paul’s bid failed, it did pick up the support of some senators who voted for the spending bill in February, including Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). The others were Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). …Paul also got more votes than he did for a similar proposal last year.

Kirby’s article ended on an upbeat note based on voting patterns.

I also want to close on an upbeat note, but for an entirely different reason. Here are the annual
numbers from the CBO baseline (what will happen to spending and revenue if government continues on its current path) and the numbers for Senator Paul’s proposal.



And why do these depressing numbers leave me with a feeling of optimism?

For the simple reason that they show how simple it is to make progress with some modest spending restraint. The lower set of number show that Senator Paul quickly gets to a balanced budget by imposing an overall reduction of about 2 percent on spending in 2019, followed by annual increases of about 1 percent until 2025.

I think that’s a great plan, but I’d also be happy with a plan that allows spending to grow by 1 percent each year. Or even 2 percent each year.

My bottom line is that we need some sort of spending cap so that the burden of government spending grows slower than the productive sector of the economy. In other words, comply with the Golden Rule.

And what’s especially remarkable is that solving our fiscal problems is still quite feasible notwithstanding the reckless spending bill that was recently approved (Paul’s proposal, incidentally,



leaves in place the small – and temporary – tax cut from the recent reform legislation).

P.S. Senator Paul would achieve a balanced budget in just five years by letting spending grow during that period by a bit less than 4/10ths of 1 percent per year. Does that sound impossibly radical? Well, it’s what Republicans managed to achieve during the heyday of the Tea Party revolution, when they actually produced a five-year nominal spending freeze. In other words, zero spending growth! If they could impose that level of discipline with Obama in the White House, why not do the same with Trump (who quasi-endorsed the Penny Plan) at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue?

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