GOP Congress Signing Off on Two Year Budget That Would Empower Obama

GOP leaders in Congress are preparing to rush through a two-year budget that would leave President Barack Obama with roughly $40 billion in extra domestic spending, plus an unfettered ability to attack undefended conservative causes via his regulations and management directives.

Last last night, Congress released the outlines of the deal, which is slated to last until October 2017.

Leaders are “clearing the barn” of high-priority spending disputes, said Daniel Horowitz, the senior editor at Conservative Review.

But GOP leaders and legislators “are refusing to use the power of the purse” to win conservative policy goals. They “are essentially nullifying James Madison’s plan to give Congress the power of the purse,” Horowitz added.

If Republicans “will not fight on the budget… it is systematic breakdown of [constitutional] checks and balances,” he said.

In practical terms, he said, GOP politicians “are allowing Obama in his most final, most dangerous year, to do whatever he wants to transform the country.

That passivity allows GOP legislators to sidestep many contradictory demands from their donors and voters until 2017, he said.

But that passivity, he said, is “just going to pour fuel on the [populist] fire” that has put two outsiders — real-estate magnate Donald Trump and brain-surgeon Ben Carson — far ahead of established GOP politicians in the 2016 race.

GOP and Democratic leaders hope to rush the $8 trillion budget deal through Congress in less than 48 hours, denying the public—or even congressional committees—any ability to debate the nation’s largest ever budget law.

But that’s good for GOP leaders, who hope to elect Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)58% as House Speaker, Oct. 29, or as soon as the budget deal is passed, said Horowitz.

That rapid process is expected to minimize the populist blowback from the GOP’s diverse base as—once again—the GOP leadership fails to fight for their voters’ priorities,” he said.

So far, said Horowitz, Ryan “is either silent or complicit in it” in the back-room deal.

The budget outlined early Oct. 27:

Would hide one hugely unpopular raise to the federal government’s credit limit — dubbed the ‘debt ceiling’ — in a larger and unprecedented two-year government budget dispute. That’s much less painful that undergoing two debates to pass two one-year debt-ceiling votes.

• Would provide contractors and agencies with roughly $112 billion in extra domestic and military spending until October 2017, and give legislators the ability to claim the the extra spending will be offset by future spending cuts as far distant as 2025.
• Would spend so much money— more than $1 trillion on defense, for example — and will be rushed through Congress so fast that few voters will notice how the deal imposes aa two-year delay on the 2011 “sequestration” budget-plan that has sharply slowed the growth of federal spending since 2011.
• Would eliminate most budget debates before the next presidential election, saving incumbents from casting votes that would annoy donors, party loyalists or swing-voters.
• Would block a sharp increase in Medicare payments due from older voters.
• Would deny Congress the “power of the purse” for two years, while leaving Obama freer to push his last-year progressive agenda via regulations and management directives. For example, Obama has used his management power to accept more than 240,000 Central American migrants since 2010.

This surrender of congressional power would allow Republicans and Democrats to shrug their shoulders every time voters protest when Obama ticks another item off his political bucket-list — Accept Muslim refugees? Offer a new type of amnesty to illegals? Impose tougher curbs on energy use? Free domestic criminals? Convert another region into national park? Reduce military standards to boost weaker female soldiers or force salutes of sex-blurring cross-dressers? Expand Obamacare?

The draft deal does not include any mention of curbs on immigrants, migrants, refugees, work permits, border, parole, or sentencing, Planned Parenthood, Iran or nuclear.

The two-year deal would also avoid a high-risk budget battle in late 2016, just before the November presidential election.

It would also ensure that the new president—Republican or Democrat—could not pass a big budget during the first, and most important year in office.

That provision is welcomed by both parties because it would partially offset the loss of the presidential election. It could also be good for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)51%’s GOP Senators in the Senate, who are expected to lose their majority because many Democratic-leaning States will vote for Senators in 2016.

Source: Breitbart