Was/is PAYGO a Fraud?

…Bunning was objecting to yet another monthly extension of unemployment payments absent an explanation of how it would be paid for.

…None of this is paid for. Instead, the government borrows ever more money, incurring ever more debt and ever more interest on that debt.

To count the interest would be to highlight the fact that we are filching the money from our children and their children rather than paying for spending today by cutting something else. Bunning wasn’t even against spending the money; he just wanted the something else identified and cut.

…The majority of Senate Republicans joined Democrats in concluding that the allocation of every one of these 3.6 thousand billion dollars is so vital that not one of them could be sacrificed in favor of unemployment insurance.

…The pols call these mounting months (now years) of unemployment benefits “temporary,” even though the real unemployment rate remains in the double digits and no relief is in sight. The “temporary” label is a budgetary trick. It enables lawmakers to sidestep “PAYGO” — Pay As You Go — restrictions that require the federal government to pay for current obligations out of current revenues.

…When Republicans controlled Congress, they made a mockery of PAYGO entitlement restrictions, particularly when it came to enforcing Medicare cuts that were required by law. As the Heritage Foundation’s Bruce Riedl observes, PAYGO was a gimmick to project the illusion of fiscal responsibility even as budget deficits soared. Thus it comes as little surprise that, even as President Obama’s sudden paeans to PAYGO ring in our ears, Democrats are slyly sidestepping it.

…Bunning’s battle gave Republicans a chance to make points about runaway deficit spending, the fraudulence of PAYGO posturing, the foolish redistribution of wealth to create expensive and unproductive government jobs, unemployment-benefit extensions that Democrats refuse to pay for and that actually increase unemployment…

So, did Republicans rally behind Bunning? Not a chance.

Why? Why abandon this fight when the GOP has the facts on its side?

Republicans…did not want their own sorry PAYGO history rehashed.

Andrew C. McCarthy
National Review
Hat Tip Guarino