Republican red-ink run

Credit longtime conservative firebrand Rush Limbaugh with a flash of honesty this week: “All this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it’s been around.” That’s Limbaugh’s take on the Office of Management and Budget’s announcement that the annual deficit is projected to hit $1 trillion this year, for the first time since the aftermath of the Great Recession. Back then, Republicans raged at what they considered reckless spending by then-President Obama (which, ahem, helped drag the country out of the hole). Candidate Trump himself promised to eliminate the-then $19 trillion debt in eight years. Today? The GOP, captured, is silent on fiscal irresponsibility run amok.

Blame, you guessed it, Donald J. Trump. He won the White House in part by rejecting

years-long Republican orthodoxy and refusing to overhaul Social Security or Medicare. In truth, those entitlements do need reforms — not thoughtless cuts but reasonable tweaks to keep them sustainable. With no plans to do that, Trump championed a $1.5 trillion tax cut slanted toward the wealthy and corporations, while ballooning defense outlays, the single largest chunk of discretionary spending on the books.

No wonder the overall debt soars to $22 trillion.

All this makes even more absurd Sen. Rand Paul’s move (see above) to block permanently funding compensation for those sickened by the toxic air after the 9/11 attacks.

Hey, Republicans: The attacks on American fiscal responsibility, once a core commitment of conservatives, are coming from inside the house.