It’s most important to focus on the immediate cuts in the deal, of course. My preliminary understanding is the number for the real year-over-year cut from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2012 is $7 billion. That’s the cut defined as most people would understand it, i.e. a real reduction in spending. Then, there are the cuts from the projected levels of spending growth in the “CBO baseline.” This gets complicated and I’m not a budget wonk (obviously!), but the cut in fiscal year 2012 budgetary authority from the baseline (as agreed to in the Biden talks) is apparently $80 billion and in outlays is $24 billion. By way of comparison, I believe the real cut from fiscal year 2011 to 2012 in the Ryan plan was $37 billion. And the cut in budgetary authority from the baseline in “Cut, Cap, and Balance” was about $110 billion.
Republicans should start defining the budget problem in real terms that the average American can understand. Dems for years have demagogued "cuts" that were in reality increases, but smaller than the Dems had wanted.
A cut in spending should be a cut - meaning spend less than you did last year. And a cut in spending should mean a cut next year, not an aggregate of reductions over 10 years (cuts which will never occur, in any event).
I am fed up with politicians' methods of accounting. And I am sure most citizens are also. If I reach my personal credit limit, getting it extended is not an option. And it should not be for these charlatans, either. I accept that there must be a weaning process, but cut actual spending (year over year) NOW and work towards a balanced budget in the NEAR future.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo the real cut is 7 billion (a drop in the bucket) and the rest is the same old BS we usually get.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat says it succinctly. So why is anyone praising Boehner for agreeing to this deal?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm not even sure it qualifies as a "drop in the bucket".
F2011 is estimated to include $3.82T in expenditures (and depending on what happens to interest rates in a few weeks, it could be MUCH higher). So, what percentage would that $7B represent in terms of expense reduction from current projected estimates? .1832%.
George Will likes to say, when speaking about expense reductions like this, that they "aren't even a rounding error". Well, this wouldn't even be a rounding error. In fact, it wouldn't even represent one single day of the daily federal government outlay.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank the gods of fiscal conservancy for our GOP overlords and their massive reduction in federal spending of 0.1832% over the next year!
FINALLY something us 'reduce-the-size-and-scope-of-government' folks can get behind!
Another 1000 or so more protracted fights like this and we can make some real headway for or progeny in the next millennium!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow those are small numbers. Just wow.
This is the Kraken picking a shrimp out of its teeth and declaring "fine. there. I'm on a diet."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseShouldn't the main focus be on actual programs being cut? If they agree to cut widget subsidies by 30%, it's pretty easy for the next Congress to restore that. But if they repeal the law authorizing widget subsidies, that becomes harder to restore.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"If they agree to cut widget subsidies by 30%, it's pretty easy for the next Congress to restore that."
It's easier than that. They'll just subsidize the component ingredients of widget manufacture.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd why do you believe that a law setting spending at some level is easier to pass than a law permitting spending on something?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse2012 budget: roughly $3,700 Billion.
Amount cruel Republicans want to slash? $7 Billion.
0.19%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How much crueler can you be?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseVia The Right Scoop:
Senator Rand Paul: "Boehner plan will add 7 trillion to the debt"
External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseALL YOU HAVE TO ASK IS A SIMPLE QUESTION:
Does this plan make the debtclock start running backwards or not?! If not, its a fail, try again.
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe can no longer be satisfied with pathetically miserable half-steps "in the right direction." Our nation's future is at stake.
If Boehner can't do better than $7 billion, then he needs to step down.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes, it is a pittance. But conservatives must remember that the real battle is not over the debt-ceiling, but rather the 2012 elections.
What so many fail to recognize is that the GOP only controls the House. There is no way in he** that Obama and the Senate Democrats were ever going to sign on to any serious reform of entitlement spending as part of deal on raising the debt-ceiling.
Conservatives need to 'get real' and understand that the only chance to prevent the Democrat/progressive movement from destroying America via uncontrolled spending is to retain control of the House, gain control of the Senate and elect a conservative president in 2012. Anything short of that will be catastrophic. The only way to gain control of both Houses and elect a conservative president in 2012 is to make sure that Obama/Dems 'own' the deficit and national debt and 'own' the pathetic economy. That will not happen if the GOP allows Obama and the MSM to blame the GOP for any economic fall-out that might occur if the debt-ceiling is not raised.
Real entitlement reform will require that conservatives make sure that the GOP has control of D.C. in 2013. If the GOP then wimps out, the Tea-Partiers can go ballistic. Until then, hold your fire and make sure we at least get to a position in which the GOP can act w/out having to make deals w/ progressives.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Conservatives need to 'get real' and understand that the only chance to prevent the Democrat/progressive movement from destroying America via uncontrolled spending is to retain control of the House, gain control of the Senate and elect a conservative president in 2012."
Do you mean like in 2003 when Bush and a Republican House and a Republican Senate passed the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit? Until recently the largest new entitlement added by any party since Medicare began? Forecast to add over half a trillion dollars to the nations debt in its first 9 years?
So we have to "get real" if we want entitlement reform?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf we continue on this path, there may not be any 2012 elections.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhere is that 7 billion dollar number coming from?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRich, several market analysts have opined on how August 2 is not really a drop-dead date (External Link
). Perhaps Republicans ought to wait it out a bit and, when armageddon does not come to pass, Obama will have even less credibility than he has now.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSpending cuts beyond the current year's "budget" are illusory. Period. They simply should not be considered. Anytime a Congresscritter of either party brings them up to prove they're "cutting spending", EVERYBODY within hearing should laugh at them. Mock them without mercy. Democrats should be mocked for saying something so outlandishly false in light of their past behavior, Republicans for being foolish enough to even give the appearance of believing something so monumentally at odds with historical reality.
The only spending cut that is real is this:
We spent X amount last year. This year we will spend X-Y. Last year. This Year. Minus Y. EVERYTHING else is smoke and mirrors.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is not perfect but it sure as heck beats the "sharing of sacrifice" from the other team.
It is a start. It can be amended and made better, perhaps even this week before it goes to a vote. Have a glass half-full, people.
This is a man-made crisis by the White House: tripling the debt, bogus stimulus packages, and the kinetic movement in Libya costing $60 million/month (savings right there we could find!). Debt crisis and doom have been their trump card (no offense to The Donald). This card, chaos and no payments to seniors,veterans, and the disabled has worked before. It is not working now.
If Obama had a guarantee that he would poll well if he raised the debt limit he would do it himself, as Bill Clinton advised. He knows if he increased the debt ceiling without Congress it is at his own peril, and he will own it. He is too chicken for that, our unprecedented President Windsock who voted "present" his entire brief stay in the Senate instead of forming an opinion.
Two-tier. That is what I like about this, as the two-tier brings tears to this White House.
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