Washington GOP concerns about deficits, debt disappear in Trump era Infrastructure spending plan is priority

By Andrew Taylor Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - For decades, congressional Republicans have pushed to slash the budget and reduce the size of the federal government, especially during the eight years Democratic President Barack Obama was in office. Now that Republican President-elect Donald Trump is poised to take charge, deficits and debt just don't seem to matter to the GOP. The first significant piece of legislation under unified Republican rule is a budget measure that, as a prerequisite for a speedy repeal of the Affordable Care Act, endorses deficits adding almost $10 trillion to the debt over the coming decade. Soon to follow is the health repeal measure itself, which could erase more than $1 trillion in "Obamacare" taxes that the party has previously held onto in earlier budget plans to keep its promise to balance the budget. Republicans will also turn to a huge, $1 trillion-plus spending bill to wrap up unfinished Cabinet agency budgets. It's likely to carry Trump priorities - billions of dollars for a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and even more for the Pentagon. Trump and incoming top White House officials such as his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, are making it clear that the new administration doesn't support tackling the financial problems of the huge benefit programs that are the biggest drivers of future debt, Social Security and Medicare. A more pressing priority is a huge infrastructure spending plan. Some of the party's deficit hawks are not happy. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is promising to vote against the current GOP budget plan, which is a bare-bones measure that calls for keeping the government on autopilot for the next decade. GOP leaders maintain that the budget plan is simply a "shell" that's being used to set in motion an "Obamacare" repeal without the threat of a filibuster by Democrats. Some of Trump's appointees, including his designated budget director, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., and his choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., come from the ranks of deficit hard-liners in the House. "Why some folks here in Washington would be willing to let these programs go bankrupt is beyond me," Price said during a budget debate in 2015. "Medicare and Social Security are going broke." Price and Mulvaney could offer a counterbalance to more cautious voices like Priebus, who on Sunday said Trump doesn't want to "meddle with Medicare or Social Security." Top Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan are no longer in the habit of issuing bold promises about balancing the budget or curbing the rapid growth of Medicare. Ryan's major fiscal project for later this year isn't cutting spending; it's reforming the loophole-cluttered tax code. "One of the things that we're focusing on is getting people back to work, is economic growth," Ryan told reporters Tuesday. "You can't ever balance the budget if you don't get this economy growing." Published: Thu, Jan 12, 2017