On Thursday, Republicans took the first in a series of steps toward what is, for many, the culmination of a lifelong dream: slashing the corporate tax rate and lowering the tax burden on the long-suffering rich. By narrowly passing a budget resolution in the House, lawmakers are now closer to being able to use the reconciliation process to pass tax reform with a simple majority in the Senate (the Senate Budget Committee passed its own budget on Thursday and is expected to send the resolution to the floor for a vote in two weeks). The proposed G.O.P. budget naturally takes a sledgehammer to federal spending on the poor, which is fitting since the party’s corresponding tax cut would do so much for the rich. The final product would combine drastic cuts to the social safety net with a tax plan that could see some members of the middle class paying more in taxes—a one-two punch that would knock the non-rich in the ribs when they’re already down on the ground. (Hope you can swing that E.R. bill!)

The G.O.P. budget would cut $5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years, with a trillion of those dollars coming from the Medicaid program and half a trillion from Medicare. (“Entitlements” like housing assistance and food stamps wouldn’t fare much better.) Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s budget would increase to $620 billion.

Democrats, naturally, are alarmed. The House budget “targets disproportionately the most vulnerable,” said Representative Jim McGovern. “Budgets represent our values, and if this represents Republican values, then shame on you. That, to me, is what this budget represents—it’s about making things worse for people . . . to pay for a tax cut for wealthy people.” Equally incensed were Representatives John Yarmuth and Nancy Pelosi, who accurately described the budget as “a slap in the face [to] anyone who isn’t a millionaire” and “miserable, deceptive, [and] horrible,” respectively.

Republicans offered a not-entirely-convincing rebuttal, pointing to the fact that just because their program would impoverish grandma and grandpa that doesn’t mean said budget cuts will actually make their way into law. Sure, it’s on their wish list, but a lot of things could go on a wish list that might never materialize, like a call to exhume Ronald Reagan’s body and parade him around the Capitol on special occasions. If that’s the case, why not throw in a call to raise money by selling the healthiest elderly‘s organs on the black market? People are really in no place to get upset if it’s unlikely to happen!

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Speaking of tax cuts...

While the passing of the House budget was surely cause for excitement inside the Capitol, not everyone got the memo that it was a special day. Reuters reports that just as Republicans were celebrating this important step, the killjoy academics at the Fed had to open their mouths and ruin everyone’s good time. Although Federal Reserve officials usually refrain from commenting on fiscal policy, San Francisco Fed President John Williams apparently felt the need to offer his two cents in light of the fact that the tax plan revealed last week is so patently ridiculous. Williams said that the framework unveiled by the Trump administration and the G.O.P. might cause a “short-term growth surge” but could ultimately feed “unsustainable growth” that would “ultimately be undone by asset price bubbles, inflation, and possible recession.”