10 Things The GOP Will Pass In Pork-Filled Budget Deal

P. Gardner Goldsmith | May 3, 2017
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Congratulations!

The GOP holds the House, the Senate, and the White House, and, in addition to not abiding by the Constitution and repealing all of the so-called “Affordable Care Act,” they are set to pass a budget that not only hands the Dems pretty much everything they want, it also funds so many obviously crazy things that it would be virtually impossible to defend.

Take a deep breath, and let’s dive into the swamp!

  1. The GOP budget does not cut taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, which comprises 40% of that organization’s income. Rather than mention that there’s nothing in the Constitution that gives the politicians the power to take peoples’ money and hand it to an organization that was founded by a eugenicist and is the number one supplier of abortions around the world, the GOP said, in essence, "There’s plenty more cash to extract for you, PP!" (However, good news arrives in a separate House bill passed late in the day on May 4. This DOES defund PP. The cash will still be taken from taxpayers, but this time it will be given to local health centers that don't conduct abortions. This still needs to pass the Senate.)*
  2. The Nixon-Era monstrosity EPA will not be eliminated, and its budget will not be cut. (The 1% cut some news sites are reporting is not really a cut, but a 1% lower amount than previously planned.) The gang gets over $8 billion of your cash and your kids’ cash, since the US operates on debt that future generations will be forced to pay.
  3. There were zero, Z-E-R-O, cuts to the unconstitutional Corporation for Public Broadcasting. So your tax cash can continue to fund radio stations that you don’t like, stations that take up huge swaths of the radio spectrum.
  4. The middle finger of current pork projects, the California High-Speed Rail scheme, will get even more magic cash, $100 million, to be precise. Trump had proposed blocking the funding, but the uber-conservative GOP in the House said, “Nah! Let’s send more money down the rabbit hole!” It is important to note that no public transit system in the history of rail has ever run in the black.
  5. The unconstitutional National Institute of Health will get $2 billion more from this already bankrupt government.
  6. “Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy” sees more BBQ sauce slathered on the pork, in the form of $17 million more.
  7. The unconstitutional vestigial tail of Teddy Roosevelt, the abysmally run National Park Service will get $81 million more.
  8. In addition to the $11.2 billion that will go to the kindly agents of the IRS, the agency gets an additional $290 million. The metastasis continues.
  9. The highly controversial Bureau of Land Management, which saw an armed standoff in Nevada eighteen months ago - over land that should, according to the Constitution, be in the control of Nevadans, will get $15 million more. No cuts. Do a bad job in the private sector, and lose business. Do a bad job in the government sphere? You get more money and no one loses a job.
  10. College subsidies will increase. Rather than stopping the insane runaway inflation caused by government handouts for college, the GOP have decided to increase Pell Grants by thousands per student, which will amount to more millions down the tube.

And all of these are just a few of the big-picture items the GOP handed Donald Trump to sign. They don’t include little details like federal funding for psychological aid to breastfeeding moms and water projects in Africa. And while a handful of leftists might take the superficial approach and claim that opposing such programs means someone is cold-hearted, the reality is precisely the opposite.

Stopping the government from forcing our neighbors or their children to pay for these things does not mean we don’t want to help people in need. Individuals can choose to spend money on any cause they desire. What one recognizes in criticizing these mandates is that our neighbors can best reflect their own morals and feelings when they are allowed to send money where they wish it to go.

Donald Trump occasionally talked a good game in this area, extolling the virtues of letting people keep their own money and use it as they wish -- but he has vowed to sign this bill rather than veto it.

(*Blog edited on May 5, 2017 to indicate new development on Planned Parenthood funding.)

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