Congress

Budget Chairmen Return Early to Decide How Terrible the Budget Should Be

While Congress is still on official recess, the chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees are returning to work early to debate the finer points of a budget that will never become law.

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) will meet on Thursday, a Budget Committee aide said. [...]

Republicans hope to finish a joint House-Senate budget by Wednesday, a deadline that looks like it will be hard to meet. Congress is on the second week of a recess that began after each chamber approved its respective budget.

Among other things, the Republican House and Senate budgets would repeal Obamacare, convert Medicaid and CHIP into a block-grant system, convert Medicare into a coupon system, cut spending by trillions of dollars, cut taxes for the rich, drastically reduce social programs, and basically end life in America as we know it today.

Everyone seems to agree that these are swell ideas, but House and Senate Republicans have not agreed on just how badly we should hurt the country. Disagreements remain on how drastically we should alter the tax code in favor of the wealthy and how many children should be forced to go without healthcare or food.

The good news is these are minor disagreements which House and Senate Republicans agree must be done in some measure. With a little bit a luck, they will complete their fantasy budget ahead of the utterly meaningless, self-imposed deadline. If they're unable to meet the deadline, I suppose they will just have to set a new date for presenting Ultron's vision of fucking the entire country over.