If you thought the GOP pretending that Ukraine started the war with Russia was nuts, behold Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho who wants to pretend that Trump's 2017 tax law wasn't passed under reconciliation rules

 

 Honest to God, these people are clowns.

Republicans consider major budget change to obscure deficit impact of extending Trump’s tax cuts

... Extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed into law in 2017, would cost $4.6 trillion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the official nonpartisan scorekeeper.

That’s under the “current law” metric that has traditionally been used, as the tax cuts are slated to expire at the end of this year. But Senate Republicans want to use a different scoring method called the “current policy” baseline, which would assume that extending tax cuts costs $0 because they’re already law.

The chair of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, endorsed the “current policy” approach, telling reporters that it “recognizes that extending current law does not change the tax policy, does not reduce tax revenue.”

Congressional GOP aides say the idea could have a huge impact on what they’re able to pass in the budget bill. If they use the current accounting process, they have no chance of making the 2017 tax cuts permanent, because that would require paying for it. And this process would also be key to unlocking Trump’s other tax proposals, like slashing taxes on tips and overtime pay. ...

Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said it would set a “terrible” precedent if Republicans adopt that budgeting approach.

He said it would be a backdoor way to nuke the filibuster and take an anything-goes approach to the reconciliation process, which Congress can use once per fiscal year to evade the 60-vote rule in the Senate for changes to spending and taxes. The process imposes significant constraints, like needing to pay for long-term laws that add to the U.S. debt.

“My advice is: If they adopt that policy, we should advise the American people to forget about their credit card debt,” Neal said. “You wouldn’t have to analyze revenue and expenditure.” ...

The budget framework passed this week by the GOP House is guaranteed to raise the national debt by $19 trillion in 10 years, which means we'll be $60 trillion in the hole by 2035. 

All the shenanigans and pretending and make believe used over the years to get us to the current point of $36 trillion in debt, trotted out yet one more time aren't going to stop us from a date with $60 trillion in debt.

 

WE ARE NOT A SERIOUS COUNTRY.

The National Debt has been at $36 trillion plus change since Nov 21

 

 Three months and counting.

The federal government is expected to blow through $7.266 trillion in fiscal 2025.

That's $20 billion EVERY DAY.

The deficit is projected to be $1.781 trillion in fiscal 2025.

That's overspending of nearly $5 billion EVERY DAY.

We need a 25% spending cut, or a 25% tax increase, or some combination of the two.

But Republicans plan to cut taxes by $4.5 trillion and increase spending on the military, on the border, on deportations, and on energy deregulation (ha ha ha, they have to spend money to make money).

This is not a serious country.

 

https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/federal-receipt-and-outlay-summary

Now the Trump administration is imitating the most odious revolutionary rhetoric of the Obama administration

 

WH's Karoline Leavitt: Trump "Is Fundamentally Transforming Our Country For The Better"

 

We are fundamentally transforming our country for the better, truly restoring our government, the 27-year old know-nothing says, when they're actually gutting it. 

These people all think they're so smart.

 

They think they're cutting something down to size which is already on its knees. Federal employment today has hardly been lower as a percentage of civilian population in the post-war. The low point was achieved already in 2018. The Leviathan State is a complete myth.

 

If Trump truly restored our government, he'd be hiring dramatically, not firing. 

For all of Trump’s and Musk’s talk of efficiency, their policies will likely slow down the government. The state needs capacity to perform core tasks, such as collecting revenue, taking care of veterans, tracking weather, and ensuring that travel, medicine, food, and workplaces are safe. But Trump seems intent on pushing more employees to leave and making the civil service more political and an even less inviting job option. He bullies federal employees, labeling them as “crooked” and likening their removal to “getting rid of all the cancer.” A smaller, terrified, and politicized public workforce will not be an effective one.

To start, let’s dispense with the notion that the government is too big. It is not. As a share of the workforce, federal employment has declined in the past several decades. Civilian employees represent about 1.5 percent of the population and account for less than 7 percent of total government spending. According to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, seven out of 10 civilian employees work in organizations that deal with national security, including departments—such as Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security—that the public supports.

The reality is that the federal government has long faced a human-capital crisis. ...

More.

The country is $36 trillion in debt because it is not taxing enough, and hasn't been taxing enough since Ronald Reagan. We pretend we can borrow to infinity for what we want, but we can't afford it all anymore. That is why they're surrendering to Putin, and taking a meat cleaver to DC.

This is not a serious country, otherwise a South African wouldn't be running it.

 

 

 

 

 

In his Feb 21 debate with the conservative historian Niall Ferguson, J. D. Vance said Trump was trying to achieve a lasting piece of Ukraine lol

 A very unfortunate but accurate Freudian slip.

And the idea that "we're not going to telegraph our negotiating posture" is just laughable on its face. The administration has publicly said Ukraine won't get any land back and will not become part of NATO, both of which are concessions before negotiations have even begun.

These people are a joke, a very bad joke.

 

 

Jim Cramer says take the nutball more seriously

 

Wall Street needs to take Trump more seriously, Jim Cramer says

One nutball era ends, another begins, Wednesday edition

 

Trump says U.S. will ‘take over’ Gaza to develop it, and Palestinians should leave

 

‘Deranged’ and ‘problematic’: Bipartisan lawmakers bash Trump’s Gaza proposal

 

He's the Gentrifier in Chief lol, move the poor out, let the wealthy take over:

 

Trump: Gaza Could Become "The Riviera Of The Middle East," "We'll Make Sure That It's Done World-Class"

 

David Brooks is not a serious person

 

David Brooks: Donald Trump Is The Most Consequential American Politician Since Ronald Reagan:

 

And the fact that he's reelected and now about to take office and use executive orders to wipe out a lot of things, including the civil service potentially, or parts of it, that's just a gigantic pivot in American history. 

A president who must resort to executive orders is not consequential. The next president can wipe those out, by executive orders.

 

More importantly, there is nothing consequential about presidents who must pass major legislation through reconciliation rules, as Trump had to in 2017, which means the legislation is temporary by definition. Trump must now spend precious second term months on this same issue. He aims to extend his tax cuts for another period under reconciliation rules, which is fine, but that will also be temporary, not consequential.

 

Boehner and Obama made the Bush tax cuts, originally passed through reconciliation, permanent after Obama was re-elected in 2012. That was consequential.

The Bush tax regime is consequential. It makes Trump step and fetch it, just like Obama.

Donald Trump is already hard at work making long lists of all the things he's not going to accomplish as president, which he'll foolishly fritter away his time on

 Ten points about The Swamp.

Seven points about The War on the Drug Cartels.

Trump's saying all this stuff and we don't even know yet if Republicans will win the US House, where they have 214 seats as of right now and lead narrowly in 8 undecided races. If they win them all they'll have 222 seats, with 218 needed for the majority.

If not, well that'll be the end of all ambition, now won't it?

222 at best is a very narrow margin to accomplish anything anyway, a mere continuation of the status quo where Republicans in the House must tread lightly to keep the caucus unified with a very similarly sized narrow majority (220).

What kind of sweep was this? Once again the Trump movement . . . isn't.

It would be easy to call this stuff hubris from Trump. Let's just say he still hasn't learned anything about how to accomplish anything of relatively permanent value. He has NO priorities when everything is a priority. He is, once again, unserious.

The Senate will be in Republican hands, so we'll at least get more judicial appointments who might advance traditional American principles of law and order.

The scuttlebutt is that the first agenda item in Congress will be making Trump's expiring tax reform permanent.

I can imagine him having to waste the entire first year on this. He'd be better off quickly settling for its extension for another ten years under reconciliation rules, and then move along smartly to immigration and energy reforms before the midterms are upon us in 2026, after which he'll be the lamest of lame ducks.

If there's any hope of boosting GDP and improving everyone's pocketbook they've got to make energy reform the priority. And mere immigration enforcement solves an untold number of other problems which bedevil the country, like illegal drugs, crime, and social spending.

Spending bills will come as they will, and should simply aim to starve the federal government of money to shrink it, as could have been the case last time but nothing changed. The beast grows naturally because permanent spending programs are indexed to inflation. That isn't going to be stopped. Growing the economy to pay the bills is therefore job one.

I'm expecting very little positive from this lot, but I do hope J. D. Vance will emerge at the end of it to take us to a better future.

Democrats who say they fear Trump because he's an authoritarian are absolutely comic. Watch for rogue judges to hamstring him just like last time, and Trump will bluster and fume and things will simply muddle along.

But, of course, unforeseen events like wars have a way of intruding and making mooks of us all. Let's hope Trump can finally make a deal to end and prevent them.

"Joy" is the new "Not a serious country"

 

Did you notice how not one word was said in last night's Trump-Harris debate about Kamala Harris' price controls proposal to combat inflation?

ABC's debate moderators made sure NOT to go there, no sir. And they completely avoided making Harris defend her inflation record as Biden's VP and instead joined the attack on Trump, fact-checking him multiple times but not her. Trump had to debate three people.

It was a disgraceful spectacle which he should have known better than to join.

At least Trump called her a Marxist at one point, that was good.

Harris for her part continued to push for the gimmicks which WaPo previously called out: $25k down-payment assistance which will only increase housing prices by $25k; $50k tax credits for starting a business, which is notably a lot more than for the everyday folks Democrats say they care about most (how many of those will later declare bankruptcy and pocket the cash?); $6k child tax credit, an idea stolen from J. D. Vance and bid-up just like student-loan forgiveness in order to buy votes.

It's all just marginal stuff which treats the symptoms and not the causes.

She is not a serious candidate.

 

She's earned nothing, no one voted for her

 Newspaper thinks you earn things with words. Just words.

Not a serious country.

With Acceptance Speech, Harris Earns Her Ascent

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Kamala the confused: Trump is both unserious and a serious threat

 Pick one!

Kamala Harris: Trump Is An Unserious Man, But The Consequences Of Putting Him Back In The WH Are Extremely Serious

 

Methinks she doth protest too much. 

Stephen Curry lol

 NBA super star eyes presidential bid? 'Maybe'...

 

RFK Jr is not a serious candidate for president, ICYMI

 Aaron Rodgers, Jesse Ventura Top RFK Jr's List for Running Mate...

DeSantis Over Before It Started is the truest headline Drudge has posted in a long time

 DeSantis should never have run this cycle in the first place, but once in, you gotta be in it! This withdrawal after one lousy contest is just pathetic. Not being prepared to run through Super Tuesday March 5th is the sign of an unserious candidacy.

But the worst part is DeSantis quits quoting Churchill about having the courage to continue is what counts. DeSantis is not continuing, hello. Doesn't he realize he's implying he has no courage?

This is just awful.

This guy is finished, for good.

 

 

Xi Jinpingpooh masters The Art of Unserious American Political Cycle Maintenance

 

I've wanted Trump to just go away since about January 2019, Newt Gingrich since about 2012

Because it's all "just words", as Barack Obama once said.

 

Tonight Is the Most Important Moment in the GOP Primary

Newt Gingrich, NY Sun

 

If someone hits a home run with language, ideas, and/or attitude, a substantial number of disheartened and despairing anti-Trump donors may notice — and decide to write really big checks.

 

Shocking right? A politician asserting the primacy of politics.

 

Well, "the most important moment" doesn't exist. There is a long series of important moments, when the voters have their actual say in the polling booths of the individual primaries and the elections, at which point the politicians had better deliver on the words, or else.

Most of them don't, but we fall for them every time, and they know it.

But this is most certainly true:

Given all the press coverage early in Mr. DeSantis’ candidacy — and the substantial amount of money he raised — his slide has been the biggest Republican story this year.     

 

Yes, it is the biggest story because Ron DeSantis has consistently delivered on his words in Florida . . .

and the voters nationally don't give a flying fig. 

 

Newt should know better.

 

He followed up his words as a congressman during the 1980s with a Speakership in the 1990s consisting of a temporarily successful if mixed bag of policies. Which is why he, along with Mitt Romney, subsequently never made the big time. You can't run against ObamaCare by promising RomneyCare or HeritageFoundationCare instead. Donald Trump in his hubris never learned the lesson either, squandering away his political capital on overturning it in 2017.

The majority of Republicans now remain content with the feckless entertainer who mouths "just words". They have no appetite for the humdrum of an executive who actually delivers and executes real, lasting reform.

 

This remains a not serious country, ridiculously adolescent to the end. 

The Fed left the Funds Rate unchanged yesterday, and no members of the Federal Reserve Board currently anticipate a rate lower than at present through the end of the year

 They anticipate higher, but not by much, which means more rate hikes this year.

The yield curve aggregate yesterday closed just 4 basis points lower than the current cycle high of 4.674% achieved on March 8th, at 4.671%. That's the sum of the basis points for all US Treasury securities marketed yesterday divided by 13 (ranging from 1-month securities to 30-year).

To say the Fed's response to inflation has been timid would be an understatement.

In the 1980s the Fed's response to core inflation such as we experience today at 5.3% year over year was a Fed Funds Rate in excess of 10%. We're at 5.08%. The yield curve is not steppin' and fetchin' when the big dog won't bark.

This is not a serious country, and is perversely more than willing to inflict the worst tax on all, namely inflation, mostly because the whole damn economy is predicated on 2% inflation, which halves your nestegg in 35 years.

At 5% it does that in just fourteen.

It's criminal.

GOP candidate positions on Ukraine demonstrate nothing but groveling to the anti-war right

 And the kernel there is pretending things that are not true, the mark of an unserious country.

Nikki Haley is simply incoherent. She says we have to win this war, but without more financial assistance. 

“I don’t think we need to put money in Ukraine,” Haley said last week before an audience in Iowa. ... “This is not a war about Ukraine, this is a war about freedom—and it’s one that we have to win,” Haley said. “If we win this war, this will send a message to China, it will send a message to Iran, it will send a message to North Korea, it will send a message to Russia. If we lose this war… they said Poland and the Baltics are next, and you’re looking at a world war.”

Ron DeSantis pretends Russia never invaded and simply has a territorial dispute with Ukraine.

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests—securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party—becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis told Fox News host Tucker Carlson this week.

And The Daily Beast isn't wrong about Donald Trump's position, who to this day touts the myth that he is some great deal-maker who can untie the Gordian Knot:

Former President Donald Trump has said he would have let Russia “take over” parts of Ukraine if he were still in the White House.

It is also the case that there is plenty of pretending on the other side, that the West wasn't responsible for the Ukrainian revolution of 2014 which ultimately provoked the current conflict.

Statesmen tell hard truths to their people. But none of ours seem capable of telling even the simple ones, including Joe Biden.

As usual Americans are mentally ill, wanting mutually exclusive things

74% want a no fly zone!

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-americans-broadly-support-ukraine-no-fly-zone-russia-oil-ban-poll-2022-03-04/

But fewer than half want the broader war that implies.

 

Not a serious country.