Senator Mike Rounds is even worse at taking responsibility for bad policy outcomes than Governor Kristi Noem. Check out how he talks to KELO Radio about the national debt as if he didn’t even have that title in front of his name:
Rounds says that Congress really only has control of 30 percent of the budget.
Those are items like defense and education.
The other 70 percent is for Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.
He’s also not pleased with how Congress handles increasing the debt limit, which took on renewed importance this week. The Trump administration says the federal government is burning through cash faster than expected.
Rounds says if Congress says it’s going to take on debt, it better be prepared to pay it [Todd Epp, “Rounds: How Congress Budgets and Taxes Is Kind of a Mess,” KELO Radio, 2019.07.11].
Boy, I don’t know, Irony Mike. Those lines might have worked in 2014 when you were running for Senate, but now it sounds like you’re describing your own failure to legislate effectively.
Maybe you were too busy texting donors during the budget orientation, but Congress has control over 100 percent of the budget. Congress has as much power to change outlays for Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare as it does for defense and education. You also have 100 percent control over whom and how much you choose to tax to pay for those programs and how much you choose to rely on deficit spending and voodoo economics.
You may also have missed the part of orientation that explained your unique power as a United States Senator. If you don’t like how Congress handles raising the debt limit, you could bring that process to a screeching halt with a wonderful little procedure called the filibuster. Stand up in the well of the Senate, start talking, and don’t stop until your colleagues agree to deal with the debt limit differently.
But what are you freaking out about? Your Dear Leader’s econ guru insists that the debt you’ve let inflate by a quarter (or should I say 18 trillion quarters?) during your Senating is not a huge problem:
Yes, yes. Even the CBO acknowledges that over the next 50 years — now, I’d love to be around for that analysis; I may not be — but the deficit is coming down in the long run. And I will say, Peter, as I have, there are basically only two ways to lower budget deficits. One is economic growth, which is worth the 3 1/2 trillion per point of GDP; that’s why I’m harping on USMCA, not small potatoes, and limited government. And we are pursuing both. I don’t see this as a huge problem right now at all. Quite manageable. And revenue analysis — and I know we have other questions, and I don’t want to spend too much time, but revenue analysis is coming in very well with respect to our earliest projections of the impact of the tax cuts on the economy and the budget. I mean, actually, I would argue strongly that the corporate tax cut has already been paid for, and that roughly two-thirds of the overall tax cut has been paid for. 2018 was year 1. 2019 is year 2. Give me another year or two, and I think you’re going to see tremendous improvement. But right now, 2 1/2 percent of GDP, that’s the CBO number. It ain’t much [Larry Kudlow, quoted in Colby Hall, “Larry Kudlow on $22.5 Trillion Debt: ‘I Don’t See It As a Huge Problem at All Right Now’,” Mediaite, 2019.07.10].
Senator Rounds appears not to understand either his proper role in government or his leaders’ preferred talking line on fiscal matters. If the debt matters (and he and his fellow Republicans certainly campaigned as if it did when they could blame President Obama for it), one would think that five years in Washington would have taught him that he as a United States Senator is responsible for it.
Five years after we sent him to D.C., Smilin’ Mike seems to have learned nothing except how to lie with a straight face. He must have been in Trump’s Econ class to see the deficit coming down and the tax cuts paying for themselves. I’m sure he agrees that the tariffs are good for the ag industry, too. To quote the Tangerine Terror, might as well try someone else because, “What have you got to lose?”
Indeed Loren, a thousand bucks a plate for fake meatballs is appropriate for the fake senator. When will Rounds and the tall guy get real about the farm economy and what they have allowed to take place? Blaming congress, please, no one is that high. Bankruptcy filings are right in the lap of Rounds and the tall guy. They bear complete responsibility, I hope those that gag down those thousand dollar fake meatballs know what they’re really gagging down, their livelihoods. Anyone who goes to that fraud show should be forced to pass by a mirror, to see just how big an ass they are.
Marion still hasn’t taken responsibility for EB-5. Why should he take responsibility for the deficit he willingly helped create ??
Loren, I like your style– “Tangerine Terror.”
There are 2 budgets for the GOP. One is the GOP’s budget and the rules and functions are entirely flexible, basically whatever the GOP wants them to be. On the other hand, there are myriad structures for Democratic economies and they all show that it’s bad, bad, very bad.
That is US political economics.
End of lesson.