Yesterday The Conservative Review posted an article about the two-year budget recently passed by Congress. Although there are two good things about the budget–the fact that it funds the military and the fact that it prevents government shutdowns for the next two years–there are some serious problems with it–mostly overspending. I understand the objection to the overspending (and agree with it), but I wonder if a budget without overspending could have been passed. I suspect with good leadership and good messaging, we could have passed a much more sensible budget.

The article reports:

A travesty occured in the chambers of Congress last night and early this morning. Republicans in Congress exposed themselves as hypocrites and frauds by passing an unconscionable two-year budget deal that will explode this year’s deficit and add $1.5 trillion to the debt. This is a level of spending that is three times larger than government spending in President Obama’s final year in office.

A majority of Republicans in both chambers of Congress voted for the bill, and President Trump signed it Friday morning. Whatever pretense of fiscal conservatism the Republican Party once professed has vanished from all but a few conservatives in Congress.

In the United States Senate, Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., stood in objection to the Republican Party’s fundamental betrayal of conservative principles. He was joined by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. Paul held up the Senate vote Thursday evening, triggering a short government shutdown in the middle of the night. In a lengthy speech on the Senate floor, Paul criticized his colleagues for assailing government spending under President Obama and then outdoing Obama under President Trump.

“So the reason I’m here tonight is to put people on the spot. I want people to feel uncomfortable,” Paul said on the Senate floor. “I want them to have to answer people at home who said, ‘How come you were against President Obama’s deficits and then how come you’re for Republican deficits?’ Isn’t that the very definition of intellectual dishonesty? If you were against President Obama’s deficits, and now you’re for the Republican deficits, isn’t that the very definition of hypocrisy?”

It is, on both counts. And the liars and the hypocrites are outraged that Sen. Paul would dare expose them as such. Republicans are savaging Sen. Paul in the media. Sen. John Thune, the number three Republican in the Senate, called Paul’s actions “a colossal waste of time.” “He wanted attention and he got attention,” said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Penn., went so far as to suggest it’s “easy to understand why it’s difficult to be Rand Paul’s next door neighbor.” Dent is referring to the neighbor who assaulted Sen. Paul, breaking several of his ribs and putting him in the hospital. But receiving disgusting comments like that are the norm when you expose the swamp, as Sen. Paul has done.

I would like to mention at this point that I believe John Thune is gearing up for a presidential run. He is not a conservative and will say what he thinks will get him the highest approval ratings.

Voters elected Republicans to shrink government and decrease spending. If Republicans want to be re-elected in the mid-terms, they are certainly not moving in the right direction. The budget that was recently passed is an illustration that there are really only two parties in Washington, and those parties are not the Democrats and the Republicans. One party is the Democrats and what are called mainstream Republicans; the other party is the Republicans who hold to the Republican party platform of smaller government and lower taxes. We need more Republicans who believe in the party platform and fewer Republicans who have chosen to become part of the Washington establishment (swamp).