Hey, Big Spender: Kevin Cramer’s conversion from Deficit Hawk to Deficit Hiker
Cramer champions “tweaking” Social Security, Medicare & implementing “means testing” to pay for his bad spending habit
(BISMARCK, ND) – We all know sticking to a budget can be hard – but it’s especially tough when you ran for office campaigning on the need to eliminate the national debt, but are now trying your darndest to please a president you really, really like.
Just ask Kevin Cramer. On the campaign trail in 2012, Cramer painted himself as a dyed-in-the-wool deficit hawk – decrying national debt, proclaiming “North Dakotans have a responsibility to sacrifice,” and that the federal budget should be rolled back to 2008 levels.
In another case of Cramer saying one thing and doing another, now that there’s a new president in office, Cramer is whistling a much different tune – trading his once stringent, conservative opinions for the role of Presidential Rubber Stamp, North Dakota be damned.
Let’s take a look at just a few examples of the funny math and harmful cuts Cramer is now championing to explain the trillions he is putting on the credit card of North Dakotans:
- Balancing the budget on the backs of North Dakota seniors by “tweaking things like Social Security and Medicare” and implanting “some means testing” to these vital programs.
- Claiming the GOP tax reform bill could generate “as much as half a trillion dollars worth of new revenue annually.” That would mean the tax bill would pay for itself in just three years. That’s just a lie. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Republican tax plan will add more than $1 trillion to the national debt.
- Claiming his vote to increase health care premiums by 20 percent would “incentivize folks to get health insurance through lower premiums and federal resources for low-income individuals and families.” In fact, the bill would have increased premiums for an average 40-year-old North Dakotan by $800 annually, while eliminating health coverage of at least 30,100 North Dakotans.
