The Republicans talk about running in 2016 on a platform of bolstering the American middle- and working-classes.

And then they pass a political document posing as a budget that engages deep cuts in the very things that would bolster the American middle- and working-classes: (1) Cuts to both Medicare and Medicaid, (2) cuts in higher education funding, (3) cuts in basic education funding, (4) cuts in infrastructure spending (no private sector industry is more expansionary to the economy or creative of more jobs than the construction industry, which has the longest food chain in the private sector; furthermore, the manufacturing and transportation sectors are already showing the negative effects of our unwillingness to do anything about our crumbling infrastructure), (5) continued efforts to do away with the ACA.

Most ironic of all is the fact that, after cutting those areas that expand the economy and create jobs, they want to raise defense spending—which has the largest percentage of fraud of any arena of government spending—by $38 billion just in the non-war account (which allows them discretion to raise the combat operations account “as needed”). Sorry, but that defense spending doesn’t provide widespread gains for middle- and working-class folks.

Rusty Inman