Trump's Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney Blows Up Republicans on Immigration & the Deficit

In a rather bizarre turn of events, Pres. Donald Trump's Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney is absolutely blistering his own party and his boss on the federal budget deficit and immigration while traveling and speaking in Europe. In a speech this week, Mulvaney called out Republicans on the deficit, saying that as soon as Barack Obama left office Republicans in Congress buried the issue.

Mulvaney, the Wash. Post: "My party is very interested in deficits when there is a Democrat in the White House. The worst thing in the whole world is deficits when Barack Obama was the president," Mulvaney said. "Then Donald Trump became president, and we're a lot less interested as a party."

Democrats and economists have been saying the same thing for three years, especially after the Trump administration ballooned the federal budget deficit by slashing corporate tax rates in 2017. Republicans promised that the tax cuts would pay for themselves, but, as predicted, that was a pipe-dream and the deficit will be more than a trillion dollars this fiscal year. It's odd that Mulvaney chose to remind everyone of this, especially in an election year.

Then, on Wednesday, in a separate speech in England, while discussing legal immigration, Mulvaney contradicted his boss, other administration officials, and many Republicans in Congress by saying that America needs more foreign workers to grow the economy.

Mulvaney, the Wash. Post: “We are desperate — desperate — for more people,” Mulvaney said at the gathering in England. “We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth that we’ve had in our nation over the last four years. We need more immigrants."

To be fair, there is clearly a disagreement within the administration, and among Republicans generally on legal immigration, and Trump has shifted back and forth over the last 3 years on the issue. However, Mulvaney's strident appeal for more foreign workers is unlikely to be appreciated by the administration's anti-immigration contingent including Stephen Miller.

Mulvaney did, however, follow the party line on climate change in his speeches this week.

Mulvaney, the Wash. Post: “We take the position in my party that asking people to change their lifestyle dramatically, including by paying more taxes, is simply not something we are interested in doing,” Mulvaney said in answer to a question about why the government was not spending and doing more to fight climate change."

"The audience laughed at his answer."

As well they should.

#news

By: Don Lam & Curated Content