Let The (DC Beltway) Depression Begin!

Oh boy, Elon and the Donald may have stumbled upon something big. We are talking about a real narrative changer with respect to America’s headlong plunge into fiscal ruin.

As it is, you can pillory today’s $36 trillion public debt, which will be $70 trillion within the decade and a staggering and society-crushing $150 trillion by mid-century, until you are blue in the face. Yet you will still find once again that the GOP is nearly as obtuse on the matter as the Dems.

In turn, the UniParty has punted on the Uncle Sam’s soaring debt basically because the public doesn’t give a damn, either. The money-printers at the Fed have simply short-circuited the process of fiscal governance by shielding main street from the punishing interest rates and “crowding out” that would otherwise result from Washington’s madcap borrowing.

For instance, even this morning the pitiful GOP chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Lindsay Graham, said that he wants to start with a mini budget reconciliation bill that, well, adds $150 billion of new spending each for defense and border security over the next five years. But no spending cuts need even apply!

Then again, the whole original purpose of the budget reconciliation mechanism was to facilitate spending cuts and budget balancing, not spending increases and ever deeper rivers of red ink. Yet this head-in-the-sand modality may finally be on the verge of a big reversal.

That’s because by the simple political theatrics of pretending to close down USAID and airing the absurd and outrageous line-item detail as to where its $45 billion budget is actually going, Musk & Co have the spenders on the run for the first time since 1981.

It’s as if a couple of smart monkeys took a club to the bees’ nest and quickly the whole troop is now shrieking and feasting on the honey. In this case, we are referring to the resulting theme that Washington is a giant cesspool of waste, excess and hypocrisy. After all, nothing could better objectify that than the hit parade of pure USAID idiocy which has been broadcast across social media in recent days, including—-

1. $1.5 million to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.

2. $70,000 for the production of a DEI musical in Ireland.

3. $2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam.

4. $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia.

5. $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.

6. $2 million for sex changes and LGBT activism in Guatemala.

7. $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt.

8. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations, even after an inspector general launched an investigation.

9. Millions to EcoHealth Alliance, which was involved in research at the Wuhan lab.

10. Hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria.