Cruz Won’t be Trumped—Watch Him Cook Bacon on a Machine Gun
Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) has shown an affinity for breakfast foods he did, after all, famously read "Green Eggs and Ham" on the Senate floor. Now, the Texas senator is the latest Republican presidential contender to ham it up in a stunt video released Monday—this time, he separates himself from the pack by cooking bacon with a machine gun.
“Few things I enjoy more than on weekends cooking breakfast with the family. Of course in Texas, we cook bacon a little differently than most folks," Cruz says in a video. Cruz walks the viewer through the rather unique cooking process, including wrapping strips of bacon around the gun’s nozzle and encasing it in aluminum foil to keep in the heat.
Cruz himself fires off several rounds at a gun range. After he’s finished, and gotten grease all over the cement floor, he uses a fork to pick a piece of still sizzling meat off the barrel and eats it.
“Mmm. Machine gun bacon,” the senator says with a smile before chuckling.
The 66-second clip comes roughly two weeks after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), another White House hopeful, shot his own video where he used a variety of methods to destroy cellphones after he had his phone number given out by GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
The video is sure to bounce around the web and get people talking about Cruz’s candidacy just as the Republican field gets ready to take the stage for its inaugural debate.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday showed the Texas lawmaker taking fifth in the GOP primary race, with 9 percent support. That put him 10 points behind current polling leader Donald Trump. Cruz also trails Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and neurosurgeon Ben Carson, according to the survey, meaning that the bacon stunt can't hurt: His campaign could definitely use more sizzle.
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Map of the Day: Navigating the IRS
The Taxpayer Advocate Service – an independent organization within the IRS whose roughly 1,800 employees both assist taxpayers in resolving problems with the tax collection agency and recommend changes aimed at improving the system – released a “subway map” that shows the “the stages of a taxpayer’s journey.” The colorful diagram includes the steps a typical taxpayer takes to prepare and file their tax forms, as well as the many “stations” a tax return can pass through, including processing, audits, appeals and litigation. Not surprisingly, the map is quite complicated. Click here to review a larger version on the taxpayer advocate’s site.
A Surprise Government Spending Slowdown
Economists expected federal spending to boost growth in 2019, but some of the fiscal stimulus provided by the 2018 budget deal has failed to show up this year, according to Kate Davidson of The Wall Street Journal.
Defense spending has come in as expected, but nondefense spending has lagged, and it’s unlikely to catch up to projections even if it accelerates in the coming months. Lower spending on disaster relief, the government shutdown earlier this year, and federal agencies spending less than they have been given by Congress all appear to be playing a role in the spending slowdown, Davidson said.
Number of the Day: $203,500
The Wall Street Journal’s Catherine Lucey reports that acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is making a bit more than his predecessors: “The latest annual report to Congress on White House personnel shows that President Trump’s third chief of staff is getting an annual salary of $203,500, compared with Reince Priebus and John Kelly, each of whom earned $179,700.” The difference is the result of Mulvaney still technically occupying the role of director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, where his salary level is set by law.
The White House told the Journal that if Mulvaney is made permanent chief of staff his salary would be adjusted to the current salary for an assistant to the president, $183,000.
The Census Affects Nearly $1 Trillion in Spending
The 2020 census faces possible delay as the Supreme Court sorts out the legality of a controversial citizenship question added by the Trump administration. Tracy Gordon of the Tax Policy Center notes that in addition to the basic issue of political representation, the decennial population count affects roughly $900 billion in federal spending, ranging from Medicaid assistance funds to Section 8 housing vouchers. Here’s a look at the top 10 programs affected by the census:
Chart of the Day: Offshore Profits Continue to Rise
Brad Setser, a former U.S. Treasury economist now with the Council on Foreign Relations, added another detail to his assessment of the foreign provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: “A bit more evidence that Trump's tax reform didn't change incentives to offshore profits: the enormous profits that U.S. firms report in low tax jurisdictions continues to rise,” Setser wrote. “In fact, there was a bit of a jump up over the course of 2018.”
