In addition to the issues at the border, keep your eye on the GOP's budget mess in DC

While many in the country are rightfully giving lots of attention to the separation of families trying to get into the US to escape atrocities in their home countries, other parts of US politics and policy continue as well. And "Budget Guy" Stan Collender notes that the GOPs that control Congress also are failing to do their job when it comes to figuring out what to do with the federal budget.

As he recounts what he calls "The Worst Week EVER for GOP Federal Budget Nonsense", Collender notes that Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP-run Senate is so scared of losing their slim majority that they won't even follow the House in voting to rescind $15 billion in previously authorized spending, even though the money will never be spent anyway. In addition, the Trump Administration is throwing out ideas that are electoral albatrosses, and will never be passed anyway.

The GOP Senate majority rejected the Trump rescission even though it would have mostly cut previously enacted appropriations that were never going to be spent anyway.

Of course, it could be the federal government consolidation plan that [Trump OMB Director] Mulvaney announced (and made sure he himself got credit for developing) but which at this point in the congressional session has little-to-no chance of being considered and even less of being adopted.

And yes, the issue of separating children from immigrating parents and putting them into concentration camps is part of this budget mismanagement. Collender points out this observation from MSNBC's Chris Hayes, who noted that there isn't any money designated for these crimes against humanity operations.

Zero-tolerance policy is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars very quickly. But agency budgets were set by omnibus before the policy was announced. So where’s all the money gonna come from?

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 21, 2018

In addition to not explaining where that money is coming from in a time a trillion-dollar budget deficits, Collender notes that Trump has threatened to shut down the government 1 months before the November elections if he doesn't get $25 billion a year to build his beloved wall on the Mexican border. Seems like that politically unpopular bluff should be called, especially if you're a Dem.

There was also the House Budget Committee’s approval of a fiscal 2019 budget resolution that was adopted more than two months after the statutory deadline for Congress as a whole — not just a committee — to agree on something.

But missing the deadline by two-plus months was actually far less ludicrous than the fact that the committee-approved budget resolution includes $5.4 trillion in politically unacceptable cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other mandatory programs that may never be voted on by the full House and won’t be considered by the Senate.

In other words, the House Budget Committee was both very late and doing something that was incredibly superfluous. Saying that it was “symbolic” is giving it way to much credit.

So not only are the Republicans tying themsleves to a policies that most Americans hate, they''re proposing these cuts to deal with a deficit that is the result of a Tax Scam that already is going to be (rightfully) used against them this November.

Approval of GOP tax law:

January: 44%
April: 40%
Now: 34%https://t.co/qXQ4VsC319

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) June 22, 2018

The acceptance of racism and xenophobia in the 2010s GOP is awful enough, as is its refusal to hold their own party members accountable for illegalities and sickening behavior. But it's also the incompetence of GOP leadership in Congress along with the recklessness and cruelty of their own fiscal policies that should get them blown out of power at all levels of government this year.