A $1.4 trillion budget that runs 2,000 pages is guaranteed to include some good things, but the deal to fund the federal government is still a bipartisan failure.
Yay to the repeal of various ObamaCare taxes that never made sense, to a pay hike for the troops and other defense increases, to desperately needed Medicaid money for Puerto Rico and so on.
But boo to seven more years for the corporate welfare of the Export-Import Bank and the extension of various special-interest tax breaks for distillers, motorsport racetracks, short-line railroads, electric cars and other winners of the “feed the swamp” contest.
Worst: Next year’s deficit will hit the $1 trillion mark, despite rapidly rising federal revenues. And Uncle Sam already owes more than $23 trillion, more as a share of GDP than at any time since World War II.
If the nation can’t get past its partisan wars so that lawmakers can seriously cut spending (or at least freeze it!) without committing political suicide, we’re all going to suffer when this fiscal house of cards collapses.



