I have to admit I was naive this week about the House’s commitment to fiscal responsibility.
I’ll spare you a rehashing of all the reasons a quarter-trillion dollar tax cut is a monumentally bad idea right now. With an Iraqi invasion having begun, no money in the budget to pay for it, and an escalating budget deficit, I fooled myself into thinking enough Republicans in the House would vote against Bush’s tax cut plan that it would lose. Just last week, 11 moderate GOP members said they just couldn’t go along with the plan and I felt like they had the momentum to pick up some more colleagues. At a minimum, I thought the Republican-controlled House would pass a scaled-back tax cut — still big, but not as big as Bush wanted.
I’ve learned a valuable lesson. Never vote against congressional Republicans’ propensity for making poor choices. Around 2am this morning, the House approved Bush’s $726 billion tax cut after voting 215 to 212. (We came just two votes short.)
Carpetbagger’s quote of the day goes to Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas): “The Republican budget is intellectually dishonest, morally indifferent and just plain bad for our country. (The tax plan) is shameless work of fiction.”
Ironically, the House vote came just hours after the Treasury Department announced that the budget deficit for the first five months of FY2003 was almost $200 billion. Please note, this is only the deficit for the first five months of the year, and does not include any of the costs associated with the war. The deficit for just February was $96 billion, the largest one-month deficit in the nation’s history (and February is the shortest month).
There’s something that strikes me as odd about the vote, besides the fact that so many lawmakers are willing to be so irresponsibly foolish. Usually, when Congress votes to cut taxes, it’s done for political benefit. Members love to score points with voters, and few initiatives can score more points than tax cuts.
But this morning’s vote comes just as war is getting underway. No one is paying a bit of attention to what’s going in Congress. In short, the House passed this reckless scheme masquerading as a federal budget at a time when they’re unlikely to benefit politically.
As if it couldn’t get any worse, the House budget includes politically unpopular cuts in antipoverty programs, environmental protections, education, agriculture, Medicare and money for veterans’ benefits. The budget process can be complicated and impenetrable at times, but House members could have scaled back the tax cut and left money for these programs and benefits in tact. They chose not to.
If someone, anyone, could please explain how Republicans consistently get away with crap like this, please tell me. I just can’t figure it out.