Mitch McConnell celebrated after the spending bill passes in the Senate. The bill was negotiated between Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi. She was able to get the bill through the House of Representatives last week before they left for their summer recess.
The bill passed by a vote of sixty-seven to twenty-eight. The tea party caucus was a group of senators that did not approve the bill. The bill allows the debt ceiling to expand for two years.
Elements of the two-year spending bill
The spending bill will cover for two years. Most spending bills are renewed annually.
This would prevent the upcoming election being affected by negotiations for a spending bill for 2021.
It does give the government the ability to borrow money to pay its bills. It allows the government to borrow without any spending cuts. Giving the government an open checkbook for the next two years.
The federal government does not have any fiscal responsibility. According to Rand Paul in his article on Breitbart News, the government spends two million dollars a minute. Those types of numbers are unfathomable.
The bill is not fiscally conservative. The deficit will exceed $1.2 trillion after the two years. Every year you always hear about politicians talking about cutting spending and reducing our deficits.
Nobody is living up to those promises.
Donald Trump and other Republicans campaigned on their pledge to reduce spending. After Barack Obama spent with abandon and increase our national debt in his eight years as president. Either side of the aisle is pushing for smaller government with the passage of this bill.
The prospect does not look any better for the future.
The Democrats running for president in 2020 are pushing high dollar ideas. One candidate wants to give every person in America $1000 a month. Every candidate is pushing a plan for healthcare reform which is projected to cost trillions of dollars to make it work. Fiscally conservation is not that important to the candidates.
Rand Paul has a plan to reduce the deficit and balance the budget
Rand Paul was outspoken in his displeasure of the new spending bill. He spoke out against both republicans and democrats. AP News quoted him saying, “It’s not just Democrats. Republicans are also guilty. At least the big-government Republicans who will vote for this monstrous addition of debt.”
He did propose a solution in his article for Breitbart. The first order of business would be to create a balanced budget amendment. This would make it unconstitutional to run a deficit. To change the constitution would need individual states to approve.
In the meantime, Rand Paul proposes a real compromise. The right agrees to a cut in military spending.
The left would agree to cuts in welfare. Spending by the federal government would have to frozen and not increased.
His goal is to reduce spending by five percent. That reduction would end the national deficit in five years. If that is all it takes, then the individual department secretaries need to start cutting. It should not be too difficult to reduce spending by five percent.
Rand Paul’s amendment would cut and cap spending plus balance the budget. The federal government has had a balanced budget in the past. The government seems to be the only entity that can run year over year on a deficit. Companies do that, and they are no longer in business. They are either declaring bankruptcy or closing their doors.
The debt ceiling would not be needed. The government is not spending more than they are collecting in taxes. The debt ceiling could be raised in moments of crisis, but not until the caps and cuts to spending.
Federal Government spending is out of control
This spending bill does not discuss deficit spending or try to reduce the deficit. It gives the federal government a blank check to spend as they feel needed. It does not consider debt and its effect on the future of America.
Government spending is based upon usage not need. The budget of the departments is based upon the amount they spend this year. The secretaries add a percentage to that amount and that is their budget for the upcoming year.
Purchasing for the government was always interesting. All year they tell you to control spending because the budget does not allow for any more money during the year. A month before the fiscal year is about to end, the bosses come up and say we have so much money left. Now you would think they would be overjoyed with the surplus.
Most companies would because it leads to better profits. The government asked to spend it all so that they will receive more the following year. This leads to a bigger budget in the following year, although the smaller budget was appropriate.
The other issue is the parts that were ordered. The departments end up with surplus parts that do not have any use. They could be used but most of the time they sit on the shelves for years.
All the government needs to do is reduce spending by five percent. All departments do not need to reduce spending by that percentage. Spending needs to be reduced by 5 percent. The goal is small but that reduction can affect generations of future Americans.
