Today’s D-Day for MAGA Mike. He and his team are putting their multi-trillion dollar budget resolution on the floor this evening— or at least that was still the plan yesterday, even as Republicans had started bailing on it. There are less than 3 weeks before the government starts shutting down (March 14), a scare tactic MAGA Mike is using to round up votes. Without some help from Democrats, the GOP can only afford to lose one vote and Victoria Spartz (R-IN) already claims she’s not voting for it. Other House Republicans who say they’re leaning away from backing it— with its cuts to Medicaid and food stamps— include swing district Republicans Don Bacon (NE), David Valadao (CA), Ron Bresnahan (PA). Monica De La Cruz (TX), Juan Ciscomani (AZ), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Tony Gonzales (TX) and Nicole Malliotakis (NY). Right-wing nut Thomas Massie (KY), who plans to run for McConnell’s Senate seat, also says he’s a no. MAGA Mike says everything will be fine because— he really said this— he's praying. Praying that God will let him take away millions of peoples' health care and food?
Nicholas Wu reported that today House Dems will gather “on the House steps, Jeffries said, to ‘make sure that the country can hear from everyday Americans whose lives will be devastated by the Republican budget scheme.’ It's an early sign that Democrats are hoping to recreate the activist uprising during Trump's first term sparked by GOP efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the passage of a tax package that congressional Republicans are now trying to extend. Democrats are also facing pressure from their base to mount a more determined resistance to Trump as he moves aggressively at the start of his second term.”
Paul Krugman asserted that it’s “always been a mistake to trust anyone promising to run the government like a business. Businesses and government agencies have very different objectives, and even genuinely great business leaders often have terrible ideas about policy… In the case of DOGE, it’s pretty clear that Musk is failing more or less comprehensively at his supposed task of saving money by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. But he doesn’t want the public— or, more important, Trump— to figure that out until he’s achieved his real objectives, which seem to involve taking effective control of large parts of the federal government— particularly those parts of the federal government that are trying to regulate his enterprises and those of his tech-bro buddies. Of course, given the indiscriminate nature of the layoffs he’s been carrying out and the devastating effect they’re having on worker morale, he may end up breaking the federal government rather than taking it over.”
Krugman, like many other pundit over the last week, noted that there’s “Growing evidence for a rapid collapse in the public’s trust in Trump as an economic manager. I expected this to happen eventually, since Trump campaigned on promises— like his promise to bring down grocery prices on ‘Day One’— that he had no way to fulfill; he didn’t even have a concept of a plan… [M]any polls already show Trump’s approval on economic policy underwater, which is somewhat amazing given that the policies economists fear might be destructive— tariffs and mass deportations— have barely happened yet. What happened? Part of the answer is an uptick in the prices of eggs and other groceries, which isn’t Trump’s fault— yet (wait until the deportations of farm workers begin). But given Trump’s promise to drive prices down, voters are being quickly disillusioned. It surely must also matter that Trump, who ran primarily on the economy, has ignored it since taking office, instead going after wokeness (which isn’t a voter priority), threatening our allies, trying to rename the Gulf of Mexico and empowering Elon Musk to wreak havoc in the federal government. So I guess it makes sense that buyers’ remorse among voters is setting in fast. And just wait until people see the real effects of Trump’s policies.”
Alas, whatever idol Johnson "prays" to granted his wishes. Somehow, this budget doesn't QUITE appear to reflect this viewpoint from Luke 3:11:
“Whoever has two tunics should share with him who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.”
Put another way:
“Christ must do a lot of puking when he reflects upon the good works done in his name.”
―Pat Conroy,The Water is Wide