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Your Republican Majority: Higher Taxes, Higher Deficits, Higher Spending
The Congressional Budget Office has released its numbers for the first two months of the 2016 fiscal year and… well, it’s less than ideal. The government spent more in October and November of 2015 than it did in October and November of 2014 – when the Democrats still had control of the Senate. There really aren’t many excuses you can make that really mean anything, either. Congress has the power of the purse, and should have been using it this whole time. More from CNS News:
The increase in federal spending in the first two months of fiscal 2016 was largely driven by increased expenditures on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The increase in taxation was driven by increases in individual income tax and payroll tax payments.
“The federal budget deficit was $200 billion for the first two months of fiscal year 2016, the Congressional Budget Office estimates,” said the report. “That deficit was $22 billion larger than the one recorded during the same period last year. Revenues and outlays were both higher than last year’s amounts, by 3 percent and 6 percent, respectively.”
“Receipts through November totaled $416 billion, CBO estimates—$12 billion more than the amount for the same period last year,” said the report.
“Individual income taxes and payroll (social insurance) taxes together rose by $19 billion (or 6 percent),” said CBO. “Increases in amounts withheld from workers’ paychecks—$16 billion (or 5 percent)—accounted for the bulk of that gain. Total wage and salary income and withheld taxes have both grown at about that same rate in recent quarters.”
The CBO says a large chunk of the increases came in the form of Medicaid increases built in to the Affordable Care Act, which, again, can’t just be blamed on the Democrats. Sure, as my colleague Moe Lane likes to point out, not a single Republican voted for Obamacare, but Republicans have had plenty of opportunities that aren’t show votes to get rid of it through defunding.
Further, you could at least offset those with other cuts. Instead, we get the Export-Import Bank, a highway bill, and other pork-filled projects courtesy of Republican leaders like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 52%. When the Republican ideal is supposed to be reduced government and limiting spending, you can’t let people like McConnell and his lackeys keep getting unchecked power. Yet, this is what we get time after time.
It’s not just the Democrats who are bankrupting the country. Our own party is, at best, enabling them. At worst? They are absolutely complicit in it.
The post Your Republican Majority: Higher Taxes, Higher Deficits, Higher Spending appeared first on RedState.
Source: http://www.redstate.com/2015/12/09/republican-majority-higher-taxes-higher-deficits-higher-spending/
