Congressional Republicans hastily approved a mathematically impossible retread budget of their party’s worst ideas before fleeing Washington last Thursday for a two-week Easter break.
So it’s almost certain we’ll see Reps. Chuck Fleischmann and Scott DeJarlais showing up here during their holiday to paint flowers on their revamped budget wrecking ball when they pause to brag about their other fiscal insult: Their interim legislation to keep the government funded through September by doubling down on the harshest measures of the current budget sequesters, which are randomly hurting vital government services, the job base and economic growth.
The upside of talking to them, if they would pay attention, would be the opportunity to call them to account for being so belligerent to the needs of ordinary families and to a common sense approach to economic recovery.
The budget sequesters that began on March 1 are expected to cost roughly 750,000 jobs and reduce economic growth by half a percent by the end of the year. The stock market, buoyed mostly by corporate earnings and Federal Reserve stimulus, may stay up. But slowing job growth is bound to dent housing sales and consumer spending on autos and big-ticket durable goods.
Cutbacks through federal employee furloughs and federal programs and public services will crimp infrastructure funding (think, Chickamauga Dam lock replacement and highway repairs), education and children’s services, and housing, food and medical assistance to the needy.