This budget will separate the men from the boys.
As Trump releases a Reagan budget, the Republican posers are going to have to piss or get off the pot. As he finally does what they’ve promised to do, we’ll see where people really stand.
Because the Trump budget is what Republicans have preached and campaigned on for decades.
And now he’s called their bluff.
It charts a course to balance. It fights welfare dependency. It builds our military and strengthens our borders. It pushes back against suffocating regulation and the agencies that impose it. It pulls the federal government out of issues that are none of its concern. It cuts off welfare for foreign governments. It demands that the government tighten its belt. It strikes a blow against the welfare state. It recognizes that taxpayers are people, too.
And it projects that cutting taxes and reducing regulation will spur the economy.
It sees a reduction in government spending as a giant national stimulus to growth.
In short, it walks the talk of a generation of Reagan worshippers.
And it demands that Republicans in Congress grow a pair.
It also thrills conservatives like me. Not because we want to see people suffer, but because we want to see America grow. And we know that a cancerous federal government has been the greatest obstacle to individual and societal growth that the nation has ever seen.
We also know that the dramatic increase in government dependence of recent years has done our nation and our people tremendous hurt. As the last administration explosively increased the Food Stamp and Medicaid rolls, the chains of reliance on government were forged around the futures of countless Americans. The soul-destroying bondage of the government handout engulfed more and more people.
More people on public assistance is a bad thing, not a good thing. Prodding people back toward self-reliance is a blessing for them and the country. Demanding cuts in welfare programs – requiring the capable to be productive – is a good thing for both the recipient and the taxpayer.
Republicans preach that at election time.
And now Donald Trump has offered them a platter full of it.
Donald Trump has done what nobody since Ronald Reagan has had the backbone to do.
And though it is the Democrats who are squealing about it, it is the Republican leadership in Congress who are feeling the pain. Congressional Republicans at long last are going to be called to account and forced to take a stand.
They’ve promised what Trump is trying to deliver.
And they’re either going to have his back or they are going to sabotage him.
And betray their constituents and heritage.
Because the Trump budget is more Republican than any Republican I know. And faux Republicans who throw the Reagan name around like they know what it means just got kicked square in the seat of the pants.
Much depends on where they stand at this time of decision.
Because the choice offered the country by the Trump budget is the first and best chance to redirect and right size the federal government in the lifetimes of most living Americans. It is also likely the last and best chance to save this country before it goes over a fiscal cliff of debt and entitlement.
Progressive policies of five decades – from Democrats and Republicans – have reduced the United States government to the role of welfare office. Increasingly, the biggest things our national government does is hand out entitlements and pay interest on the federal debt. Increasingly, the fruit of productive Americans goes to carry their indolent neighbors and service an indebtedness that cannot mathematically be paid off.
At the end of the day, it is the budget that charts the course. Saying things only gets you so far. Paying for things gets you all the way.
And America wants to change what it pays for.
That’s what it said last November. And that’s what Trump is trying to do today.
And that’s what the Republicans will have to prove they have the stones to deliver.