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Greed, also known as avarice, is the inordinate desire to possess everyone’s wealth with the intent to keep it for one’s self, far beyond the dictates of basic survival or extravagant comfort. It is applied to an immorally high desire for, and pursuit of, wealth and power generally to those who already are wealthy beyond imagination. The inordinate desire for wealth in a particular class of people means going to any length to take every bit of wealth, including the necessities for survival, from every other person until there is nothing left to take; in America it is the ultra-wealthy and their legislative arm the Republican Party taking everything from America and its people. Now, it is glaringly obvious that there are no limits to what Republicans will take from the people including food, jobs, wages, healthcare, pensions, housing, and their lives simply because they can and to satisfy the greed of the wealthy and their corporations.

In December 2013, the House and Senate passed a two-year budget and spending agreement that the President signed into law and it was hailed as a major accomplishment for the dysfunctional Republicans in the House particularly. The budget was a major gift to Republicans who brokered spending levels that were less than the Paul Ryan budget Republicans passed every year since they took control of the House knowing it would never get past the Senate or the President’s veto pen. However, despite just passing a budget for fiscal 2014 and 2015, Republicans are bemoaning Senate Democrats intent of not passing a budget for fiscal 2015 regardless they just passed a 2015 budget that is already in place. The issue Republicans cannot comport is the budget agreement they just overwhelmingly passed does not take everything from the people to give the rich and corporations unsustainable tax cuts.

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Senator Patty Murray who teamed with Paul Ryan to negotiate the two-year budget said there was no reason to do a fiscal 2015 budget after the two-year deal struck in December with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. In a statement Murray said, “Fiscal Year 2015 is settled, the Appropriations Committees are already working with their bipartisan spending levels, and now we should work together to build on our two-year bipartisan budget, not create more uncertainty for families and businesses by immediately re-litigating it. I went into my negotiations with Chairman Ryan hoping we could give the American people some much needed certainty after years of lurching from crisis to crisis, and I was very glad that our two-year budget deal accomplished that.” However, on Friday Republicans began assailing Senate Democrats for “avoiding responsibility” in deciding against re-creating a budget for 2015 they just spent months negotiating and passing.

The motivation for Ryan and Republicans to scrap and replace the two-year budget is because they did not get to destroy Medicare, all but eliminate food stamp funding, make major cuts to Social Security, or slash domestic spending that Republicans demanded, so John Boehner expects the House to pass Ryan’s 2015 budget despite the 2015 budget is already in place. A senior Democratic aide said the GOP “just wants to reopen the FY15 budget so they can play politics and use a vote-a-rama for partisan and campaign-related show-votes,” and that may be true to a point, but they are serious about a new Ryan budget for 2015 to eviscerate domestic spending and put an end to programs Americans paid for and expect a return on when they retire.

Ryan said he intends to write a new budget even though the December budget law established a smaller discretionary spending level of $1.014 trillion for 2015 than his Path to Prosperity budget, but he failed to give the rich and corporations unsustainable tax cuts or eviscerate Medicare and Social Security that Ryan calls “entitlements.” He said his new budget will combat income inequality to foster economic growth by giving “job creators” incentives to start hiring; such as a 15.9% tax cut for the rich and corporations. Ryan said, “CBO says our budget outlook is unsustainable. We’ve made some progress on the discretionary side, but on the main drivers of our debt, entitlements, we’ve got a lot more work to do. House Republicans will keep offering real solutions to get spending under control, fix our broken tax code, create jobs, and put us on the path to balance.” According to Ryan, fixing the broken tax code and creating jobs means more tax cuts for the rich and corporations as well as tax increases for the middle class and the poor. Putting us on the path to balance means ending Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and food stamps as Americans know them even though the Draconian cuts still will not pay for his concept of “fixing the broken tax code” (more outrageous tax cuts for the richest Americans).

The long-term deficit has already been reduced by $3.3 trillion due to spending cuts President Obama negotiated to preserve the good faith and credit of the United States, but Republicans were unable to take Americans’ Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and food stamps that is their motivation to replace the budget deal they just passed in December. Senator Murray sent out a memo to her Senate colleagues on Thursday arguing that spending cuts since 2010 reduced the long-term budget deficit by $3.3 trillion, and proposed that Congress pivot away from more time-wasting budget fights since “we have some breathing room to focus more on creating jobs, expanding opportunity and generating broad-based economic growth now and into the future—while we keep looking for ways to tackle our long-term fiscal challenges using a balanced and responsible approach.”

Republicans have absolutely no interest in a responsible and balanced approach to long term fiscal challenges, or creating jobs, expanding opportunity, and generating economic growth that does not entail more unsustainable tax cuts for the richest 1% and their corporations. Their approach for thirty years has been the so-called “trickle down” economic theory that not only failed to create jobs or improve the economy, it only enriched the wealthy and corporations beyond their wildest dreams. Subsequently, since their “approach” of taking from the 98% has so successfully enriched the wealthy, they are loath to change; particularly if change entails helping the great majority of Americans.

Even though House Republicans overwhelmingly voted (332 to 94) to approve a two-year budget including fiscal year 2015, they are reneging, criticizing Senate Democrats, and crying foul because although it cut spending more than Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity budget, it did not take Americans’ Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, or food stamps to partially fund tax cuts for the richest Americans. Republicans are going to attempt to sell their “replacement budget” scheme as “getting spending under control, fixing our broken tax code, creating jobs, and putting us on the path to balance,” but Democrats will be there every step of the way to define “fixing the tax code, creating jobs, and getting spending under control” as absurdly unsustainable tax cuts for the rich, and destroying Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Besides backing out of a budget they already passed two months ago, they will successfully waste taxpayer time and money because their sole motivation for serving in Congress is taking everything from Americans to hand it to their greedy campaign donors.