I completely agree with Ocasio-Cortez and Khanna on this.
PayGo is utterly unacceptable.
I'm a bit upset with the democrats for even considering doing such a thing, although I can't say it's surprising.
It is a thinly veiled attempt to put in place a rule they can point to later and use it as a reason not to support necessary action.
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The Trump administration has added almost 3 TRILLION dollars to the debt in just 2 years. This is, I think, some kind of record. On top of that we now have a debt which is greater than our GDP!
Now add in that the so called "tax cut" was done at the top of our economy. When we do that we stop the benefits of a hot economy and suck up all the supposed income to pay for the "tax cut". It makes it even more interesting when one considers that the main beneficiaries of the "tax cut" were the upper 1%. The plan is
a 2 trillion cut for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
What this means is that medicare will be losing 100 billion a year until, basically, done. Same with medicaid and Social Security.
The point of all of this is the current crop of announcements, by Democrats, about all the things they are going to be able to get done. The only problem is that there is simply no way that can happen. We have rules that say that if gov spends money then gov has to find a way to pay for said increases in spending. The Republicans are already destroying the so called "Entitlements", even though they also continue to say things like; "We really need to do something about entitlements". The simple fact is that the current budget plans to simply destroy "entitlements".
The point here is that thanks to the Republicans and their policies, there is NO MONEY! Its already being spent, right now, to fund the tax bill and the 1%. When the Dems come into office there is not, as far as I can tell, any money available for anything but paying the interest on the national debt.
In other words the Republicans, in their infinite wisdom, figured out how to spend any and all money available to pay for their gifts to the very wealthy. The only way the Dems can stop this is to roll back some of the Republican tax bill. To do that they will need the senate to roll back stuff like Pay-Go. I am not convinced that they have the votes to do that which means the Republicans cleverly spent all the money and, as far as I can tell, did it knowing that the Dems would take the House, and not the Senate in 2018, which also means they were ahead of the Dems from the getgo. This also means that they will fight any and all legislation from the Dems, regardless of whether its good or bad for the nation, as their singular interest is in 'beating' the Dems by stopping any, and every thing, the Dems try and legislate.
And so for that reason I am in favor of AOC's idea, maybe she is in need of playing a little catch-up on some subjects, but where strategy is concerned, she may prove a lot more brilliant than previously believed.
And Lord knows, we are desperately in need of some strategy.
[FONT="]This is some much needed pushback. Let's hope that it takes.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Lord knows, if there was a need for war money, there wouldn't even be a hint of a discussion of "pay-go", would there.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Well, Republicans are committing acts of war.[/FONT]
