GOP's Bogus "Balanced Budget" Claim
Happy Friday! For your amusement, we thought we'd pass along the following graphic House Republicans recently released:
Talk about false advertising... Fortunately, we aren't the only ones who noticed. Yesterday, Bloomberg called out House Republicans on their fictitious claim that they have balanced the budget during their first 100 days leading the Do-Nothing 114th Congress:
“If you missed those headlines about the elimination of the deficit, don't worry: They never happened…. Among the [Republican budget] ‘no’ voters was [Republican] North Carolina Representative Walter Jones, who complained that the budget would... not eliminate the deficit until fiscal 2025. ‘This budget relies on a host of smoke and mirrors accounting gimmicks and rosy economic forecasting to make it appear as if it balances in ten years,’ he explained.”
“The budget was an argument, by Republicans, that by repealing Obamacare, block-granting Medicaid, and privatizing (partially!) Medicare, they'd eventually bring the deficit to zero.It was not binding on spending, because no budget is. As Roll Call's Matt Fuller suggested, describing this vote as ‘balancing the budget’ was like describing a good conversation about a mortgage as ‘paying off the house.’ Another suggestion: It is like buying a treadmill and some healthy foods, and announcing that you have hit your target weight loss goal.”
“‘Sadly and somewhat contradictorily,’ the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget wrote last month, ‘the budget included a non-binding policy statement that in the future, the budget process should be reformed so those extensions should not need to be offset. If this were the case for all expired and expiring tax provisions, the budget would be running a $120 billion deficit instead of a $33 billion surplus in 2025.’”
“Other budget hawks were similarly unimpressed. ‘I think they're implying that they achieved a path to balance rather than actually achieving balance, because no one would seriously believe the latter,’ said Jonathan Bydlak, founder of the Committee to Reduce Spending… ‘Not to mention, there's some reason to believe that the revenue numbers may be overly optimistic, to say the least.’”
Republicans haven't balanced the budget now - and they certainly won't balance it in nine years. The Republican budget relies on a “magic asterisk” to pretend that it will, without providing any specific detail on exactly what policies would achieve the $1.1 trillion in cuts vaguely referred to as “other mandatory.” Now that we've cleared that up, it’s time for House Republicans to replace their tired rhetoric with a responsible, bipartisan solution that will put our nation on a fiscally sustainable path.