I've seen a lot of budgets, but this is the worst.

If you ever needed evidence that Trump is phoniest of phony populists, here it is. He's not even bothering to lip-sync anymore.

I hardly know where to start. Probably best to just tick through the myriad problems with this awful budget that House Republicans passed this morning.

—The right place to start with any budget is who wins, who loses. Past R budgets have, since at least Reagan, engaged in upward redistribution, giving by far the biggest breaks to the wealthiest. They argued that the benefits would “trickle down” to the middle-class and poor, but everyone knew they were just doing their donors bidding.

But here’s the thing, as captured by Mike Konczal in this must-read post. Past R budgets at least scattered some crumbs to lower-income households. Ignoring the imbalanced magnitudes of their largesse, they could say “everybody gets something.” They gave MUCH less to the poor than the rich, but they gave something.

But this time, they literally take from the poor to give to the rich. Handing the mike to Mike:

Even though conservatives are still blowing out the deficit, this time they aren’t even bothering to bring everyone along. Instead, those at the bottom are outright worse off. The cuts to spending programs, especially Medicaid and SNAP, are severe. Estimates suggest at least the bottom two quintiles, 40%+ of Americans, will experience a clear loss in income. This isn't a subtle debate over which basis to judge the proportionality of tax cuts: millions will simply have less money, even as the bill adds $3.8 trillion to the deficit.

And Mike’s figures do not include the tariffs, which are a regressive sales tax that disproportionately hits the middle-class and poor.

For this reason alone, this budget, as it stands this morning, easily wins gold for being the absolute worst, most shameless budget legislation I’ve ever seen.

—CBPP on the numbers:

Similar to Mike’s findings:

Nearly 11 million people, including 4 million children and more than half a million adults who are 65 or older or have a disability, live in households that would be at risk of losing their food assistance under the legislation’s significant expansion of SNAP’s already harsh, ineffective, and red tape-laden work requirements.

—Finally, as I’ve been stressing—and man, have I been stressing—the creditors who buy U.S. gov’t debt do not like what they’re seeing. As this benighted package has been gaining steam in the House, Treasury yields have climbed, especially longer term debt, like the rate on the 30 year bond, which spike above 5% this morning.

Circling back to the trickle-down points, budgets like these—giveaways to the rich, in this case, partially offset by cuts to the poor—are supposed to appeal to the investor class. But even the alleged beneficiaries are saying it’s too much.

As I explained yesterday, the tariffs are very likely to raise prices and lower growth, the tax plan is very likely—and, in fact, is actively doing so—to raise interest rates.

—Medicare Cuts??

Last night, my wife said to me “can you believe they’re cutting Medicare?” I said, “you mean Medicaid.” But she was right.

Because the Rs need to use a process called “budget reconciliation” to avoid the filibuster in the Senate (under reconciliation, they just need a majority in the Senate, not 60 votes), there are established rules as to what is and isn’t allowed under this procedure.

As the WaPo explains in a useful rundown:

When legislation significantly adds to the national debt, which already exceeds $36.2 trillion, it triggers “sequestration,” or compulsory budgetary reductions. In that scenario, Medicare cuts would be capped at 4 percent annually, or $490 billion over 10 years…

A Medicare cut of this magnitude will be felt by a lot of people, and not just the poor. Congress could change the rules to avoid this cut, but if they do, it will signal the removal of a fiscal-profligacy brake that markets may well recognize as yet another sign of the Rs complete abandonment of any semblance of fiscal rectitude.

—NOTE also the full and total abrogation of Trump even faking his alleged populism. He promised to lower prices and interest rates. He and his Congressional majority are raising them. He promised not to cut Medicaid or especially Medicare. All lies. He’s not even lip-syncing at this point.

This cannot stand.

I don’t have a great feel for what Senate R’s will do with this mess. I’ll study up on that and report in. But there’s no reason to think they’ll improve on it and, in fact, in their instructions, they gave themselves even more room than the House to add to the deficit. When I say “this cannot stand,” I don’t mean it can’t pass. I suspect it will.

What I mean is that those who jammed this down America’s throat must pay an electoral price for it. I understand most people are checked out of these developments, and I don’t blame them. But it is up to the rest of us to make sure everyone knows what Republicans have done. What they’ve done to the economically vulnerable, to the fiscal outlook, to interest rates, to prices, to health care, including the ACA, Medicaid, and Medicare.

That’s half of our job from here on out. The other half is to explain what we would do instead.