U.S. Budget Deficit Cartoons

U.S. budget deficit could obstruct Trump’s tax cut plan

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks after meeting with police at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in the wake of the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., October 4, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The U.S. budget deficit is proving to be a major obstacle to the tax reform plan being offered by President Donald Trump and top congressional Republicans, with one leading Senate hawk saying a week after the plan was introduced that any enlarging of the fiscal gap could kill his support.
From proposed infrastructure enhancements to a military build-up, the deficit long ago put the brakes on major new federal spending programs; now Trump’s tax-cut proposal is threatened.
“It looks to me like the administration’s already running for the hills. It looks to me like some of the tax-writing chairmen are already running for the hills … I’m disheartened by the lack of intestinal fortitude I’m seeing,” Sen. Bob Corker said.
The main problem is that the federal government is swimming in red ink with an annual deficit of $550 billion and a national debt — the accumulation of past deficits and interest due to lenders to the U.S. Treasury — exceeding $20 trillion.
The Republican tax plan unveiled last week calls for as much as $6 trillion in tax cuts that would sharply reduce federal revenues. No commensurate spending cuts have been proposed. So, on their own, the tax cuts being sought by Trump would hugely expand the deficit and add to the debt.
The administration has said two things must happen for the revenue losses to be offset. One is for economic growth to generate new tax revenues. Forecasts for that vary, with Republicans projecting much stronger economic growth and unusually large revenue gains resulting from tax cuts.
“While policymakers are gearing up to address tax reform this fall, some have advocated for abandoning true reform and instead focusing solely on tax cuts. To combat arguments that such cuts will balloon the national debt, tax cut advocates have argued that the cuts could pay for themselves, largely through faster economic growth,” said the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Washington balanced-budget advocacy group.
“However, this claim is false,” the group said in a statement.
The other way to prevent expanding the deficit is for the U.S. Congress to find new revenues for the government by closing certain tax breaks to offset Trump’s proposed deep tax cuts for corporations, small businesses and wealthy Americans.
At least $4 trillion in new revenue needs to be raised this way, said lawmakers, but every tax break on the federal books has a special interest protecting it and that is a challenge.
For example, Republicans proposed ending or limiting the individual tax deduction for state and local income taxes paid. Closing the tax break would bring in $1.3 trillion in revenues.
But high-tax states would be hit harder than low-tax states by such a move. Lawmakers in New York and California, which have among the highest state tax levels in the country, were resisting the proposal to repeal the deduction, eroding support for the plan, even among Republicans, said lawmakers and aides.
Corker has vowed that he will not support a tax plan that adds to the federal deficit. As a result, he is firm about what needs to be done to win his support for tax cuts.
“There’s no way to do permanent tax reform, no way, without … loophole closing,” said the Tennessee Republican, who announced recently that he will not run for reelection in November 2018.
Analysts said the $20 trillion national debt is already on an unsustainable upward path as the government pays for the medical and retirement costs of the aging Baby Boom generation.
That would worsen if rising government debt undermined future economic growth by pushing interest rates higher and choking off private sector access to credit, they said.
An administration official said the White House is inclined to let Congress lead on the state and local tax deduction.
House and Senate Republicans need to agree on a budget resolution if they intend to pass a tax bill before January and without broad bipartisan support from Democrats. The House was set to vote on its version of a budget resolution on Thursday.

Illinois GOP Gov. Rauner faces conservative fury for expanding taxpayer-funded abortions

Illinois GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner’s decision to expand taxpayer-funded abortions has sparked outrage from state and congressional Republicans who say he flip-flopped on the issue and are now hinting at a primary challenge.

The backlash built last week after the first-term governor signed a bill allowing state health insurance and Medicaid coverage for abortions. It spread this week to Capitol Hill, where the state's entire House Republican delegation blasted the decision. 

“In a reversal of long-standing Illinois policy, Governor Rauner has let down Illinois taxpayers and the unborn by signing” the state bill, GOP Reps. Peter Roskam, John Shimkus, Randy Hultgren, Rodney Davis, Adam Kinzinger, Darin LaHood and Mike Bost said in a statement.
The lawmakers issued the statement Tuesday, the same day they and other Republicans in the GOP-controlled House voted overwhelmingly to impose criminal penalties on anybody who performs or attempts to perform an abortion on a fetus after 20 weeks -- with exceptions for incest, rape and saving the mother’s life.
HOUSE PASSES 20-WEEK ABORTION BAN
The pushback from state Republicans to the governor's decision was more immediate and visceral. Illinois state GOP Rep. Peter Breen argued that Rauner, in signing the bill, double-crossed voters, GOP state legislators and even Chicago's Cardinal Blasé Cupich. Rauner reportedly had pledged earlier to oppose the measure.
“I mean, you lied to a priest,” Breen told a local radio station. “This guy is done.”

'Governor Rauner has let down Illinois taxpayers and the unborn.'

- Statement from Illinois' U.S. House Republicans

Breen said the bill signing was “the straw, for me, that broke the camel’s back” and claimed it has badly damaged Rauner’s credibility and political future.
He also suggested a Rauner primary challenge in 2018 was “inevitable” but that he doesn’t plan to mount one, in liberal-leaning Illinois.
State Rep. Jeanne Ives said she “wouldn’t rule out” running against Rauner, who is seeking a second term, according to Politico.
Rauner campaign spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski issued a statement saying voters know Rauner "is leading the effort to overcome [Speaker] Mike Madigan's political machine and deliver more jobs, better results for taxpayers and term limits."
Rauner, a former venture capitalist with a massive reelection war chest, also upset conservative and other critics in August when he signed a plan that limits the role local and state police play in cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
And in July, the Democratic-controlled General Assembly overrode his gubernatorial veto to allow a multibillion-dollar tax increase, further upsetting conservative critics .

Judge dismisses case against pardoned Arpaio

A federal judge in Phoenix Wednesday formally dismissed the criminal case against former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, accepting President Donald Trump's pardon of the controversial lawman.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton dismissed Arpaio's conviction with prejudice, meaning the matter cannot be tried again. Bolton held off on ruling on Arpaio's request to throw out all orders in the case, including a blistering 14-page ruling in which the judge explained her original reasoning in finding that Arpaio was guilty of a crime.

Arpaio was convicted in July of criminal contempt for what Bolton described as "flagrant disregard" of a 2011 court order to halt traffic patrols that targeted immigrants.
Trump pardoned Arpaio Aug. 25, setting off a firestorm of criticism from legal advocates and congressional Democrats, more than 30 of whom asked Bolton to declare the pardon invalid and move forward with sentencing.
Arpaio attorney Mark Goldman described the attempted intervention by lawmakers as "despicable."
"What are our Democrat congressmen doing?" asked Goldman, who described the lawmakers as "narcissistic idiots ... making a statement where they have no standing to make any statement whatsoever."
The former sheriff, who didn't attend Wednesday's hearing in federal court, was accused of continuing the patrols for 17 months so that he could promote his immigration enforcement efforts in a bid to boost his successful 2012 re-election campaign.
Bolton's ruling cited television interviews and news releases in which the sheriff made comments about keeping up the patrols, even though he knew they were no longer allowed.
Arpaio, who endorsed Trump and appeared alongside him at rallies during the 2016 campaign, has acknowledged prolonging the patrols, but insisted his disobedience wasn't intentional and blamed one of his former attorneys for not adequately explaining the order's importance.

Critics say the pardon removed the last chance at holding Arpaio legally accountable for a long history of misconduct, including a 2013 civil verdict in which Arpaio's officers were found to have racially profiled Latinos in the sheriff's immigration patrols. The order that Arpaio acknowledged violating was issued by U.S. District Murray Snow in the profiling case.

Prosecutor John Keller said it was appropriate to dismiss the case against Arpaio.

"This prosecution is over," Keller said. "The defendant will never be held accountable for his contempt of Judge Snow's injunction."

Bolton has previously said case law suggests a pardon doesn't erase a recipient's underlying record of conviction and instead is aimed at lessening or canceling punishment. The pardon had previously led the judge to cancel Arpaio's sentencing hearing.

Lawyers who won the racial profiling verdict against Arpaio had argued earlier that the decision explaining the guilty verdict should remain intact to serve as a rebuke of the sheriff's actions and as a deterrent to other politicians who might want to disobey a judge's orders.

Since the pardon, Arpaio has said he did nothing wrong, criticized Bolton as biased and called the offense behind his conviction a "petty crime." Arpaio, who was defeated last year in the same election that sent Trump to the White House, is now talking about getting back into politics.

Millennial Action Project: Reform Congress and then maybe Americans – especially young people – will trust government again

Congress is too stagnant, divided and corrupted to do its job – and the American people are demanding reform. The left says “the system is rigged.” The right demands Washington “drain the swamp.” Both sides need to work together to demand change in our broken national political system that will benefit us all.

Young people have grown up in this broken system – where conflict is profitable and short-term political gain gets far more attention than concern for our future. As a result, we are disproportionately disillusioned by politics.

A survey by the Pew Research Center found that only 26 percent of millennials say politics and government is one of their top three interests, compared to 34 percent of people in Generation X and 45 percent of baby boomers. 
And a Rasmussen Reports poll released in July found that among all likely U.S. voters, only 15 percent said Congress is doing a good or excellent job, while 56 percent said Congress is doing a poor job.
There has never been a better moment since the period following President Nixon’s resignation in 1974 in the Watergate scandal for fundamental Congressional reform. We need reform that will incentivize constructive leadership and restore public faith in political institutions. Today’s levels of dysfunction and public distrust in Congress are fundamental threats to our republic.
A terrific new book released by former Republican Congressman Chris Gibson of upstate New York, titled “Rally Point,” highlights needed fixes to our political system.
Gibson, who was in the Army for 24 years and retired as a colonel, served as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress from 2011 to 2017. He left Congress after fulfilling a commitment to self-impose term limits.
Among the reforms that Gibson highlights is the need to change how we finance campaigns. This issue was a common concern of voters for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in last year’s presidential race.
The most frequent refrain I heard from Trump voters last year was their call for a president “who is not beholden to special interests.” Sanders repeatedly said the system is rigged for “millionaires and billionaires” and called for campaign finance reform as his top priority. Clinton campaigned for a comprehensive plan to achieve the same goal.
The constant need to raise cash takes up enormous amounts of time and energy from candidates for Congress. They don't have time to govern and build bipartisan relationships. As one young Republican member of Congress recently lamented to me: “I came here to govern – not to spend all my time raising money.”
In “Rally Point,” Gibson calls for “capping Congressional spending limits, full disclosure of all donations, and the prohibition of all outside spending” on campaigns, including from political action committees (business, labor, outside groups, and Super PACs).
Take Back Our Republic, a conservative group led by Virginia Republican Congressman Dave Brat’s former campaign manager, has advocated campaign finance reform including tax credits and deductions that empower small-donor contributions.
The second key area of political reform is nonpartisan redistricting. We must build a bipartisan case rejecting the practice of political parties and incumbent politicians choosing their voters, instead of voters choosing their leaders.
As Gibson mentions in “Rally Point”: “The whole point of our founding was to put the citizen at the center of government.” He proposes an independent redistricting amendment to the Constitution, with implementation left to the states.
Nonpartisan redistricting is a cornerstone of a “Bipartisan Plan to Drain the Swamp” reform agenda proposed by House members Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif. They are members of the Congressional Future Caucus, the nonpartisan caucus for millennials.
Finally, to change the culture in Washington, Gibson and the Gallagher-Khanna plan call for term limits and an end to the so-called “revolving door,” where powerful federal lobbying firms employ former members of Congress to advance industries that they previously regulated.
The pressures and incentives to stay in office for a long time or go to federal lobbying paradoxically lead to costly, short-term policymaking. Simply look to our dangerous inaction on the long-term debt and climate crises as evidence.
Among the most common critiques of term limits is that professional staff will take over policymaking. To address that, we can make term limits generous enough so that elected members still drive legislating, as opposed to the staff.
Gibson and Gallagher-Khanna propose capping congressional service at 12 years, and perhaps we should consider limits as generous as 18 years. That would be long enough for a legislator to make an impact, while allowing fresh blood and new ideas to push America toward the future.
In addition, Gibson and Gallagher-Khanna propose extending the current one-year ban on members of Congress from entering federal lobbying to five years, which is currently in effect for the executive branch. The point is that we need legislators to come in with purpose and urgency to solve politically difficult, long-term problems and embrace the founders’ vision for a “citizen legislature.” 
As I have traveled across the country for the Millennial Action Project, which engages millennial lawmakers across partisan lines, I have noticed a divide on term limits and other reforms.               
Outside of Washington, I have been amazed by the tremendous support from across the spectrum for these ideas, especially from young people. The most pushback comes from people who have been influencing government in Washington for decades. But without reforms, we'll continue to witness more and more extreme disruptions of our political system, preventing sensible policy from being enacted.
These areas are a few of the many reforms our political system needs to be more functional, representative and future-focused.
The U.S. Congress is the only federal institution capable of representing our nation’s diverse views and reconciling them to advance the public interest. At the same time, members of Congress cannot effectively serve that public interest in a broken political system. Now is the time for reform. If Congress passed a bipartisan bill to “drain the swamp” and “unrig the system,” I believe President Trump would likely sign it.