The following was written by Convention of States Action President Mark Meckler and originally published on his Patheos blog.
There was so much to hate about the ridiculous spending bill that was rammed through Congress — and signed by President Donald Trump — that it was hard to fully appreciate all the reasons. Clocking in at more than 2,000 pages, no policy maker was actually able to read the thing before voting on it, so it took some time to figure out the deep level of betrayal that actually happened to the American people.
As if you needed more reason to hate this omnibus spending bill, here’s more on the “Barf Bag Budget.” The Conservative Review has the details about how the GOP is increasing funding for the very agencies, departments, and programs they told us they’d cut.
Shockingly, even, the Internal Revenue Service:
- The Child Care Development Block Grant Program, which Trump promised to cut, will see an increase in funding of about 88 percent.
- Trump promised to end most international food aid programs, yet their budgets increased by 11 percent.
- The IRS was cut even under Obama’s tenure; now it is receiving a modest increase.
- The budget for the National Institutes of Health was supposed to be cut by 22 percent and was instead increased by 8.8 percent. The CDC was to be cut by 16.9 percent and was instead increased by 14.4 percent.
- Even the smaller agencies that Republicans have universally targeted for extinction since 1995 and that Trump promised to eliminate have been increased: Legal Services Corp., the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
- The EPA funding remains flat rather than incurring the promised cuts.
- Trump promised to end the Community Development Block Grant, HOME Investment Partnerships and Choice Neighborhoods programs, all ineffective forays into local decisions. Yet this bill increases their budgets by 19 percent.
In other words, there is an ever widening gap between what our policy makers say and what they actually do. As Daniel Horowitz wrote, “Folks, this is not incrementalism, this is sliding backwards fast.”
Exactly. With every look, it gets worse than initially thought. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t give the policymakers time to read it. Horowitz calls this the “Roe v. Wade of fiscal conservatism,” and I agree.
(Though #BarfBagBudget is more alliterative.)
Want to force Congress to be fiscally responsible? Join the Convention of States Project in your state to help call the first-ever Article V Convention to limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government.
