Rubens: GOP Budget Capitulation: $9 Trillion More Debt

Congressional Republicans are highly likely this week to vote for a budget resolution which would increase federal public debt to over $29 trillion over the coming 10 years, an increase of $9 trillion. Republican leaders defend this resolution as a necessary step to repealing (and later replacing) Obamacare and these budget numbers as merely symbolic.

But the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget explains in its 1/3 post that this resolution permits that almost every penny of the tax and revenue reductions resulting from Obamacare repeal may be reversed and spent via a Republican Obamacare replacement program.

I call this resolution an early indicator of collapsing GOP support for fiscal restraint. Just as during the Bush years, GOP appetite for fiscal restraint is already evaporating under GOP control. Once again, small government and fiscal conservatives have been locked in a windowless political basement. Washington will never stop growing, let alone shrink, until spending and debt increases are ended.

On Monday, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, will introduce a substitute measure that repeals Obamacare and balances the budget by 2024 without cutting Social Security. Let’s see if he gets more than two votes.

The only solution will be to bypass our debt-addicted Congress with a constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment proposed under the Article V state-led process. Thirty-four states are needed to launch; 28 including New Hampshire are already on board, six states to go.

Hope you are off to a happy new year.

Jim Rubens is a former Republican state Senator and U.S. Senate candidate in 2014 and 2016.