KY Repugs Vote to Destroy Economy

Remember this a year from now when Kentucky's congressional repugs - Brett Guthrie, Geoff Davis, Hal Rogers and Ed Whitfield - are running for re-election claiming Democrats are destroying the economy:

Steve Bene:

But before we move on from this ridiculous, right-wing plan, let’s not brush past too quickly exactly what House conservatives endorsed yesterday. Even if this was just theater, and even if everyone in the political world knew this was not a serious attempt at policymaking, it’s hard not to marvel at just how far these House Republicans are willing to go.

Remember the radicalism of Paul Ryan’s budget plan? “Cut, Cap, and Balance” makes Ryan’s plan look centrist by comparison.

We’re talking about a plan that would immediately take $100 billion out of the U.S. economy, eliminating thousands of jobs in the process. It would make draconian cuts to key public priorities, including education, infrastructure, and energy. It would gut Social Security and Medicare, and make it almost impossible for any Congress to ever raise taxes on anyone ever again. It goes out of its way to protect tax cuts for the very wealthy, while targeting the most vulnerable.

It doesn’t even do an effective job of reducing the deficit, since that wouldn’t be the point — this is about dismantling the modern American government itself; not bringing the budget closer to balance. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Bob Greenstein explained that CC&B “stands out as one of the most ideologically extreme pieces of major budget legislation to come before Congress in years, if not decades.”

The plan is practically a caricature of Republican priorities — it’s something liberals might come up with as an exaggeration to make the GOP look ridiculous — and yet, just yesterday, it passed the House, 234 to 190. As radical as this is, 96% of the House Republican caucus voted for it, even knowing it would fail. (The percentage would have been slightly higher, but some GOP members voted against it because, they said, it didn’t go far enough.)

I’m glad Washington can now turn its attention to real solutions to the impending crisis, but these 234 conservatives, which included a handful of Blue Dog Democrats, shouldn’t be let off the hook too easily. This is a vote that should shame them indefinitely.

David M.F. Shankula at Barefoot and Progressive:

The rest of the delegation voted as expected because about a fifth of the state’s population are on Medicare and Rogers, Whitfield, Guthrie and Davis would rather they not be.

Liberals know that government spending supports huge chunks of the American economy, from Social Security checks to college tuition to agriculture to prisons, and slashing that spending hurts, not helps, Americans.