A Blueprint For Balance

The Heritage Foundation has released a 180-page budget proposal for eliminating the deficit (but not the debt) by 2023.  It is extremely light on details, but calls for draconian cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and welfare (no surprise) and repeal of the Affordable Care Act.  It calls for heavily cutting taxes and greatly increasing defense spending, making it harder to balance the budget.  It professes to promote smaller government and less regulation, except when it comes to gay marriage and abortion.

In short, same old shit.

To give you a feel for it, here's a particularly ironic passage where discrimination against the LGBT community is turned inside out, and becomes instead "discrimination against religious freedom":

The Heritage Foundation wrote:

Defense of Religious Liberty.
The freedom to earn a living, care for the poor, heal the sick, and serve the community consistent with one’s beliefs is essential for maintaining a just and free society— and this freedom has suffered erosion in recent years. Religious Americans and institutions have a right to exercise their religious beliefs that is not confined to the private sphere but is protected from government burden and discrimination in public life.

America must return to a more reasonable and historically accurate understanding of religious liberty, upholding religious and moral conscience as an invaluable support for healthy republican government and human flourishing. In 2015, the Supreme Court imposed a redefinition of marriage on all 50 states in the decision of kObergefell v. Hodges. Policymakers should now promote policies that protect from discrimination those who believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Congress should enact laws to prevent the government from discriminating against any person or group in regard to contracts, grants, licensing, accreditation, or the award or maintenance of tax-exempt status, simply because they speak or act on the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.