Being compared to Ronald Reagan is nothing new for President Donald Trump, but now that his new budget proposal is out and Republicans are praising its Reagan-esque qualities, the similarities seem to be stacking up.
Indeed, when it comes to anything presidential, praise from the GOP could not be higher when it comes in the form of a comparison to Ronald Reagan.
Tax reform activist Grover Norquist was quoted by the Washington Examiner saying, “This is a Reaganite, limited-government, anti-waste and anti-duplication budget.”
Trump’s budget, as proposed, would remove over $3.5 trillion in federal funds over the next decade. That includes $800 billion in cuts from the Medicaid program, and a boost in military spending. The plan will have no effect on entitlements.
Norquist went on to say, “It certainly makes those Republican critics who said that Trump would be a big-spending populist look like idiots.”
The tax policy studies director for the Cato Institute told the Examiner, “This is the most fiscally conservative budget since Reagan.”
Not all Republicans are excited about the budget, however, saying the cuts it calls for are too extreme. Senator Lindsey Graham said he thought the 30% cut to the State Department was too deep of a wound. And Senator John McCain called the budget, “dead on arrival,” for spending too little on defense.
But fiscal conservatives like Norquist say that it’s time for a real return to the fiscal conservatism that the GOP has always sold itself on, saying “[It will be interesting] to watch those Republicans who wanted to criticize Trump when he was running to see if they are as Reaganite as Trump is.”
The naysayers have a few strikes against them, however. John McCain, for example, had been a strident right-wing dove right up until John Kerry lost the 2004 election against George W. Bush. McCain, when he first came on the scene, was heralded as a war hero and a non-interventionist. But his quick and seemingly permanent shift into a hard-line hawk is conspicuous.
McCain has always been a never-Trumper, except when Trump sprayed that Syrian airstrip with Tomahawk missiles, and when he dropped the Mother of all Bombs on an ISIS tunnel network. This is a pretty inconsistent stream of thought from McCain, especially when Trump’s performance on jobs and his record mopping up of human traffickers are impeccable.
Senator Lindsey Graham doesn’t have a sterling record on the economy either. He has long been regarded as a hard-nosed conservative except when reaching across the aisle, especially in support of extremely damaging Obama-era policies.
He voted yes on an anti-recession stimulus package of $192 billion dollars which had no effect, and was mostly wasted on failing auto manufacturers which never fully recovered. He then voted ‘no’ on an additional stimulus that same year, leaving some room for doubt as to whether or not the senator really understood the issue.
Aside to these rather outstanding foibles, Graham has a reasonable voting record on fiscal issues. On nearly every other occasion, he voted in favor of fiscally conservative ideas. For him to turn around now, with Trump at the helm seems untoward.
This dichotomy in the opinions of Graham and McCain show one thing: they are not motivated by the issues – they are motivated by party lines and political favors.
Graham, it is interesting to note, says Russians hacked his email. This is interesting because he is famous for never using email. So we wonder: what did they hack?
What about McCain? He has been photographed having apparently friendly discussions with Abu Mosa: an ISIS press officer, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: ISIS head of operations, Muhammad Noor: a known Syrian terrorist, and Mouaz Moustafa: a Syrian Emergency Task Force official. And we assure you, he was not a prisoner of war during any of these meetings.
Generally, even people who follow the news do not know the voting records of leading politicians, don’t know what they are really up to on a daily basis, and have no idea what kinds of backroom deals they have been involved in over the years.
There is very little reason to trust the naysayers of Trump’s new budget proposal. When the unwaveringly Norquist likes a budget and people like McCain and Graham dislike it, it’s clear that a fair amount of double-dealing has been going on.
~ Liberty Planet