Woodall’s Budget Continues the Charade

Last week, US 7^th District US Representative Rob Woodall issued a press release excitedly announcing a new Republican budget proposal for 2018.  Said Woodall, “Any budget, whether at the federal level or within our households, is a roadmap – a vision – for accomplishing our priorities.”  Mr. Woodall was so excited because, according to him, the “Building a Better America” budget sets “forth discretionary spending levels that bring the budget to balance by 2027.”  In so doing, “the reconciliation instructions call on all House authorizing committees to find a minimum of $203 billion in mandatory savings over the next 10 years.”

Mr. Woodall wants you to believe that his “roadmap” will lead to fiscal responsibility in Washington, DC.  Even if we could lend Woodall enough credibility to register a modicum of hope that his “vision” could possibly lead to a balanced annual budget in ten years, the power of compound interest, together with unavoidable fiscal imbalances in the meantime, would leave the American people at least $40 trillion in debt by then.  And Woodall’s $203 billion in so-called “savings,” over ten years, is less than the hurricane damage costs from the last two months.  What other unexpected payouts might the US Government find itself politically bound to help satisfy during the next ten years?  Mr. Woodall’s budget package is simply another empty gesture designed to create a political impression of personal fiscal responsibility on his part in the minds of a 7^th District electorate growing impatient for the lack of tangible results from the establishment Republicans in congress.

Funny

In short, Mr. Woodall’s “Building a Better America” budget, combats an angry grizzly without even a flyswatter.   Now does anyone really believe that the congressman’s budget plan might lead the American Government back to fiscal sanity?  Does anyone really believe that the 7^th District ought to play this game for another ten years, just to find out that Mr. Woodall’s “roadmap” led to financial ruin? 

Now what really gets me about Mr. Woodall’s vacant budget proposal, and any implication that it might somehow, eventually, save the American government, and its people, from insolvency, is that the 7^th District Representative has received repeated opportunities to vote against unworthy expenditures in the past, never voicing the first public opposition, consistently voting as House leadership would require any member desiring to advance through its ranks. 

Representative Woodall’s voting record demonstrates that he has never seen an omnibus or Cromnibus bill he didn’t like.  He has never objected to any National Defense Authorization Act, even when those bills authorize the US Government to spy on the people he represents, propagandize American citizens or train and equip Al Qaeda fighters to take down foreign governments that have done nothing to the American people and pose no threat.  All that costs money.  The enigma, Mr. Woodall, twice voted to bailout Wall Street bankers, even in advance of the next banking crisis, those provisions becoming law in the 2014 Cromnibus.  Mr. Woodall voted for the Ryan-Murray budget deal, which eliminated $63 billion in immediate spending cuts, postponing them until years in the future, when as we all know, they will be postponed again.  Mr. Woodall has voted for every continuing resolution he has been presented, each time bypassing the need for a fiscally responsible budgetary process.  The purported “pro-life” Woodall has voted for every Title 10 appropriation, the contents of which fund Planned Parenthood abortion services.  And when I personally asked Rep. Woodall about the now famous remarks by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, touting a $5 billion “investment” of our tax dollars to somehow aid Ukraine in, “achieving its European asperations,” Woodall, who is on the House Oversight Committee, had no idea who she was or what I was talking about.  How does one conduct oversight of an executive branch when one does not know who the executive branch players are or what they are doing?

Rep. Woodall’s “Building a Better America” budget is simply another element of a continuing charade, friends.  It is an insult to the intelligence of the good people of the 7^th District.  Do not buy it.

And the truth of the matter is that the entire idea of fiscal responsibility or limiting the size of the US Government is built upon a false premise.  The problem with federal budget imbalances is not “how much” the government spends.  The problems is “what” the government spends.  It spends debt.  The US economy is built upon a platform of ever-increasing public and private debt, like a Ponzi scheme.  The entire US money supply is borrowed at interest from private banks.  How can one accomplish any goal regarding fiscal responsibility, or balancing the US budget, or certainly paying off the national debt, when the very solvency of the system depends upon the relentless acquisition of more and more debt? As many times and ways as I have asked that of Mr. Woodall, he still seems to not understand my question.  Perhaps, friends, he can understand being voted from office.