The Washington Post has obtained audio of Donald Trump schmoozing his deep-pocketed donors at a Friday night Mar-a-Lago fundraiser, and he made one remark that’s sure to enrage rank-and-file Republicans and GOP lawmakers — if someone can manage to stick the transcript in an enchanted pneumatic tube system and send it back to 2010.
Because today’s Republicans? They don’t give a shit about the deficit. They only care if a black man is spending money to prevent rickets or some shit.
In a separate audio clip, Trump is heard boasting about increasing the defense budget by $2.5 trillion. To those who criticized his spending and the growing national debt, Trump said, “Who the hell cares about the budget? We’re going to have a country.”
For most of Barack Obama’s time in office, Republicans seemed to care very much about the budget, making fears around the national debt and deficit their top talking point. They’ve backed off those concerns under Trump.
Gee, I seem to remember when the deficit was the biggest problem facing our country. It was an existential threat that was going to destroy us. Paul Ryan would stick his Eddie Munster-looking face in front of the cameras and kvetch about it for hours on end.
Why didn’t they tell us that they just didn’t like spending money on health care, nutrition programs, and infrastructure? If you can funnel more money to Raytheon or fix it so giant corporations pay zero taxes, hey, that’s just peachy.