Washington’s botched budget deal

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 27th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from member-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST:  And I’m Nick Eicher.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: President Trump signed the bill that nobody’s read, a ridiculous 2-thousand, 2-hundred, 32-page monstrosity that Congress passed. The president assures us he’ll never do it again. So why did he do it this time? Because — he wants us to believe — it’s a matter of national security.

EICHER: Commentary now from WORLD Radio’s Cal Thomas.

THOMAS: A famous Trump rallying cry is, “Drain the Swamp.”

This bill he signed floods the swamp. Our debt is now 21-trillion-dollars deep, and getting deeper.

Question: If a 1-point-3-trillion-dollar budget that requires even more borrowing isn’t enough, what is? I think voters can be forgiven for expecting at least some drainage of “the swamp” by now.

Here’s what I mean when I say nobody’s read the bill: I mean to say that nobody’s read it all.

And it’s not just because it would take multiple uninterrupted days to do so.

Nobody’s read it because it’s unreadable. Here’s the kind of thing you come across when you try:

For example, the budget for the Department of Education goes up, even though Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wants it cut by 5 percent.

Another example: The overall increase in domestic spending busts the agreed-upon Budget Control Act caps by 63-billion-dollars.

And just one more: According to The Washington Free Beacon, total salaries for officers and employees of the Senate increased by more than 12-million dollars. Not to be left out of the spending frenzy, the House increased its budget by almost 11-million dollars.
No one justifies any of this misspending on constitutional grounds because there is no justification for it.

People are getting pay raises for adding to the debt. That’s not promoting national security. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in government or your own personal life, but crushing debt insecurity. History shows that enormous debt has been a contributing factor to the collapse of nations and empires.

This is not what Trump voters expected from the 2016 election.

There is always an excuse for additional spending. And it is almost always based on lies and the failure of too many members to put American citizens first and their own careers second.

It doesn’t take much to put me in mind of a Broadway musical. But when I consider this spending bill, I imagine Congress and the president singing along with the character Ado Annie from the musical “Oklahoma.” They just cain’t say no!

AUDIO » “I’m just a girl who cain’t say ‘No.’ I’m in a turrible fix! … I’m jist a girl who cain’t say ‘No’, Cain’t seem to say it at all. I … cain’t say ‘No’!”

For WORLD Radio, I’m Cal Thomas.

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) President Donald Trump with, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, left, and Vice President Mike Pence, speaks in the Diplomatic Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, March 23, 2018, about the $1.3 trillion spending bill.

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