Today, in the name of fiscal responsibility, House Republican Leader John Boehner offer a proposal he called “CutGo”—a rule to end existing government programs and spending items when creating new ones.
Seriously? Republicans got rid of PAYGO when they were in charge, opposed reinstating it, and voted against making it the law of the land. Here are the facts:
Republicans unanimously opposed making “pay-as-you-go” (PAYGO) budget discipline this year the law of the land, and in 2007 when Democrats made this a key part of House rules. PAYGO simply returns us to the basic rule for every family budget: you don’t spend money you don’t have.
PAYGO requires Congress to offset the costs of tax cuts or increases in entitlement spending with savings elsewhere in the budget, except for a few items extending current law. If the net effect of all legislation enacted during a session of Congress increased the deficit, there would be an across-the-board reduction in certain mandatory programs.
This was a key step in turning the Republican record deficits of the early 1990s, to four years of surplus under President Clinton.
Republicans let this critical law lapse in 2002, enabling them to more easily spend trillions of taxpayer dollars on such items as the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, two wars, and the new Medicare prescription drug benefit – all unpaid for.
As a result, they left behind new record deficits. President George W. Bush had the worst fiscal record of any President in American history. Bush inherited from President Clinton a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion, but left behind $11.5 trillion in deficits over 10 years:
It’s similar to their ‘idea’ to repeal TARP. They voted against ending TARP in Wall Street Reform earlier this year—and played no role in ensuring it was paid back to taxpayers.
Did they forget that they voted AGAINST these ideas? Or did they think Americans would forget?
So other than ‘CutGo,’ how else would they “restore fiscal responsibility?”
Republicans are fighting to blow a nearly $4 trillion hole in the deficit to give tax cuts, including to millionaires and billionaires.
They would repeal health reform, which would blow another $1.3 trillion hole in the budget over 20 years.