On his weekly “Money and Politics” radio show, Larry Kudlow took a major swipe today at the Ryan/McConnell Omnibus spending bill, calling it a big mistake that is “larded up with subsidies . . . every which way.” Listen to the podcast (the Omnibus fury starts at 1:36:30). His prelude to a conversation with Steve Moore (whose comments are equally critical) began this way:
So, I don’t really know how to explain this budget deal. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. A couple of decent pro-growth tax measures in there, so, I’ll give you that, and an awful lot of bad tax measures in here. The spending side is all wrong, and some of the policy riders – things like Planned Parenthood, and visa, and immigration – are all wrong. The Republican Party is badly split because of this. I’m a big fan of Paul [Ryan], he’s a pro-growth reformer, but I’m not a big fan of his budget project … it’s about 1.7, 1.8 trillion dollars spread over 10 years, I haven’t even seen the deficit scoring on this thing. There are so many problems . . . I think this is a big political and economic mistake. . . . the spending caps are broken again – the discretionary spending caps badly broken again, the original 2011 deal broken again, exceeded every year, that is not good. This thing is larded up with subsidies, across the board for energy, renewable energy, windmills and that sort, solar, subsidies every which way. The sanctuary cities were spared – this is after all the horrific, you know the death of this beautiful young woman . . . we should have had a law, sanctuary cities spared, no reforms there. Visa waivers – very few reforms. Planned Parenthood, still funded. Immigration – right now in a war they’re going to add a quarter of a million, open the door for a quarter of a million low-skilled immigrants – these so-called H2B visas; I think Americans would like those jobs – but most of all we don’t know who they are, whether ISIS is in there or not . . .