John Kay, Conservative Guest Columnist Has It All Wrong In A Recent Opinion Column.

In a New Orleans Advocate opinion column dated 8/31/19 titled, "Kicking the budget can down a much shorter road" follows the usual conservative fairy tale.  He dislikes the two year spending bill both houses of congress passed and Trump signed into law.  The spending bill put an end to the republicans previous bills which were short term bills that had to be extended time after time by CR's. (Continuing Resolutions) The republicans did that while trying to repeal and replace the ACA without success.

The bill increases the federal deficit and Kay does not like that and is thankful that Louisiana's
Senators Bill Cassady and John Kennedy voted against the bill.  However, Kay failed to point out to his readers that both Senators voted for the Trump-GOP tax cuts that added $1.5 trillion to the deficits, much more than the two year spending bill.  Of course Kay is director of Americans for Prosperity-Louisiana, a conservative organization in tune with Business and the Trump-GOP tax cuts favored business and the wealthy so we know why Kay was silent.

Then Kay makes the ultimate "fake news" statement when he says, "Trump and congress have done a good job of allowing the American economy to surge by cutting taxes and removing regulatory barriers, steps that have led to today's robust job market.  Well, as all fair minded people know, job creation under Trump in the 31 month he has been in office is much less than job creation under the Obama administration in his last 31 months in office and by a large margin.

And one can bet, Trump's cancellations of some of the safety standards put into place on offshore drilling by the Obama administration after the BP blow out and oil spill that killed 11 rig workers will come back to haunt those Louisiana politicians and organizations who supported Trump's actions.  Its just a matter of time for the next accident to take place in the Gulf of Mexico.

The democratic party was right in pushing for a two year deal on the spending bill so there would be some certainty instead of living with CR" every few months.  Trump and the republican party signed on because their plan to force the democrats to accept a repeal and replace the ACA failed big time.  As for kicking the budget can down the road I would suggest to Mr. Kay it is a republic can since no republican President has balanced the federal budget since Eisenhower in 1960.  And that really tells the story of the can kicking.

It is obvious Kay knows very little about the economy, job creation and deficit spending.  He probably still thinks Reagan balanced the federal budget when he was President.  That has always been a republican fairy tale.


This commentary written by Joe Lorio