If this is legit, I’m getting a profound sense of “meh.”
Numerous GOP and Democratic sources on and off Capitol Hill tell National Journal that the outline of the deal is as follows: up to $39 billion in cuts from the 2010 budget, $514 billion in spending for the defense budget covering the remainder of this fiscal year, a GOP agreement to abandon controversial policy riders dealing with Planned Parenthood and the EPA, and an agreement to pass a “bridge” continuing resolution late Friday night to keep the government operating while the deal is written in bill form.
$39 billion is not much up against a deficit that’s in the trillions. It’s a move in the right direction, away from total runaway spending, but the goalposts have a few miles yet to move before any of this really matters. And contrary to what some folks might be thinking regarding the whole Planned Parenthood aspect of the debate, social discretionary spending is in some ways a test of politicians’ seriousness on the larger issue of spending as a whole. Entitlement spending is the big game, but if pols don’t have the guts to touch the small discretionary stuff, they surely won’t have the guts to deal with the major entitlements.
I don’t see this episode as a surrender on the part of the GOP if the deal as described above turns out to be the outcome. It’s more a win than a loss, but it’s not a clean win and it’s not heartening in light of the major spending problems that are left unsolved.
Update: Politico says there’s a deal. And again, meh. The federal government’s spending spree has set off a five-alarm fire, but so far everyone’s showing up to fight it with dimestore squirt guns.
Update: Boehner didn’t give in on the DC abortion funding ban after all.
Wondering if the $39 billion is in addition to the previous $4 billion and $6 billion CRs for a total of $49 billion cut this FY.
Exactly. I had the same Q. Haven’t seen this explained anywhere yet.
This is not a win by the wildest stretch of the imagination.
This cuts 2% of the budget deficit for this year.
This is cowardice on behalf of Republican leadership, plain and simple. It’s both insulting to our intelligence and embarrassing to our cause to think that getting 2% of what you want in a negotiation is “more a win than a loss.”
The fact that Republicans only offered up 6% of what we wanted to begin with is the true tragedy, and I believe it shows why this country will not face up to its problems until it’s placed on the ash heap of history with every other culture whose decadence outmatched its courage.
The only, only, only reason this might remotely be acceptable is if it places the military off the table for next month’s debt ceiling showdown….and next month is brutal (as in, six figures of permanently terminated Federal employees and entire cabinet-level departments eliminated brutal).
This is not enough. Boehner should face a challenge in his primary.
Next to go should be Obama’s tsars, this is not Russia. They were appointed w/o congresssional approval. How much money do each of them make? Does someone know where to get this info, from the most transparent White House in history? If so, please point me in the direction. Removing them would save our money too. I do whatever I can to save money as painlessly as possible for myself.
From what I have heard Obamacare is also going to be on the table, the dems will probably keep it but if Boeher got that out of Obama then he deserves our praise.
Here is a summary of Federal 2010 finances.
$ 2,200 Federal Tax Revenue (billions)
$ 1,300 Borrowing (the deficit)
—————
$ 3,500 Total Spending
$ 0 Total Saving
$14,500 Entire economy (GDP)
15.2% Taxes as % of Economy
9.0% Borrowing as % of Economy
24.2% Total spending as % of Economy
What if (say) Bob’s family budget operated like the government, in proportion? That gives a feeling for our situation:
$50,000 What Bob can spend from his income
$29,900 Bob borrows this
—————
$79,900 Bob’s spends it all
60% more than Bob’s income
$ 1,400 The GOP cut in proportion
The proposed GOP cut in spending of $61 billion is just 1.8%. For Bob, it would be $1,400.
The federal government has made big promises, far above what it will collect in taxes at current rates.
$75,100 billion ($75.1 trillion) is the amount of a fund which would pay for the unfunded part of promised entitlement programs over the next 75 years, if available today and invested at 3% interest. Of course, there is no such fund, so meeting those promises would require immediately increasing tax revenues by 76% to pay off that “mortgage”, or those promises will be broken.
Don’t take comfort from the 75 year time frame. We are already falling short, being made up by huge borrowings (the deficit). The result of the 75 year analysis is that things will steadily become worse.
Collecting 76% more in taxes might cause or deepen unemployment. Or, increasing tax rates might actually decrease tax revenues if people decided to earn less and pay less. Or, it may be impossible to convince younger people to give up their savings in exchange for the right to charge their children high taxes in turn. I think the promises will be broken.
This problem is huge. The retirees of today and in the future have paid into Social Security thinking that their “insurance premium” will fund part of their retirement. Actually, all of the cash (real resources) has been spent. What remains is only the promise to now tax the non-retired to pay for the retired, at much higher rates. That is not what people thought Social Security would deliver to them.
Promises for Medicare and Medicaid are worse; they are bigger and just as unfunded. What is more kind: to face reality now, or to default on these promises at the last minute?
Unfunded Promises (billions)
7,900 Social Security
22,800 Medicare
35,300 Medicaid
9,100 Federal Debt
75,100 Total Unfunded Promises (billions)
above curent tax collections
2,100 Federal Pensions
3,700 Veteran Benefits
1,600 All Other
—————
7,400 In current budgets (billions)
$82,500 Total Promises (billions)
The unfunded promises of $75,100 billion are 34 times the $2,200 billion in taxes estimated to be collected in accounting year 2010 (the year ending Nov 30, 2011). There is nothing saved or set aside to satisfy those promises, and there is no tax revenue now collected or saved to pay those amounts now and during the next 75 years; that is the meaning of “unfunded”.
Bob’s unfunded promises (in proportion) would be $1,736,00 increasing at 3% yearly, to be paid off in 75 years, over and above Bob’s current, spendable (and already spent) income of $50,000 (current tax collections).
EasyOpinions -> Family Budget
Thanks Andrew, that is a good info/link.
This sucks.
If this is real, then the Republicans are done in my eyes.
AWW, were you sold down the river by the Repugnicons again? Suckers. Controversial riders are off the table. $39B in cuts (eh – not so much. More like $39B less of an increase. Please.) Just remember that the next election is going to be the most important ever and the Demonrats will ruin everything if they win! Bwahahahaha!
As usual, nothing changes except for the worse.
Oh, children, grow up. 1.8 percent is better than no percent — or growing 9 percent a year, which it was Obama wants. And they got the DC abortion funding block and they’re getting a straight vote on PP in the Senate, and next month they can start the debt ceiling argument. Considering the financial contributions PP makes to the Dems, that’s pretty amazing, honestly, and I don’t think Boehner would have gotten what he did except for the maneuver of putting military funding in.
No, it’s not better than no percent.
Because Republican apologists like you will pretend that we have gained something and then everyone becomes complacent. The United States is careening off a cliff and people who think that cutting a few days worth of federal spending is heroic action are preventing us from getting anything done.
The GOP slapped us in the face, because if they really thought that this was a serious problem, their actions would have matched their rhetoric and they would not have stood behind a budget that is a full 25% larger than the 2008 budget.
The federal budget deficit this year is projected to be the size of the entire 1998 budget, and this year’s budget is still far larger than last year’s. The Republicans didn’t “cut” spending year to year, they just “cut” from Obama’s astronomically high proposed levels of spending.
Everyone posting here agrees we need to cut more. But did you notice that right now we don’t have the Senate or the White House? Rather than deciding to go after the people who fought for and got a SMALLER spending cut than we wanted, let’s redouble our efforts to get rid of the people that wanted to RAISE spending.
I am dissappointed too that we didn’t balance the budget but this is a start and the next target should be the people already attacking Ryan’s budget.
A great first step! This is great news, hooray for Boehner, Ryan and Cantor.
Out here in flyover country a lot of Obama supporters are getting more comfortable expressing their concerns about spending and the Dem’s handling of the economy. He wants the credit for the largest cuts in history? OK, only if Obama also takes full credit for the largest increases in history and not insisting that a budget be passed in 2011. No wonder he has teleprompter screens to his right and left, it makes talking out of both sides of his mouth that much easier.
Spending…oops…Winning the future. Duh, WINNING! WTF…uhuh, uhuh…can we get Charlie Sheen and Beavis and Butthead to do his reelection campaign ads? Let’s move on from the Accidental President and get a real one.
On the one hand, I gotta agree with the “meh” reaction. The spending cuts truly are miniscule.
However, there is reason for hope, for two reasons. First, the conversation is still about cuts, not tax increases, and the longer that goes on, the more the American people–the huge number of them that don’t read blogs or listen to talk radio–will be comfortable with the idea of cuts. We’re changing the way these things are talked about in this country, and that’s a good thing, but it’s a very slow process, and we need to have patience.
There’s also a point a retired Marine friend of mine phrases as, “is this the hill you want to die on?” In short, is this really the big battle that is worth everything? I daresay it is not; the 2012 budget fight is. In a sense, this fight has been a skirmish leading up to the Battle of the Bulge (pun intended), and we don’t want to get so bogged down in the skirmish that we lose focus on the larger battle coming up and even more importantly, the larger war against Fedzilla.
It wasn’t a home run, but let’s call it a solid double and move on to the next play.
Well put. This was merely a warm-up before the big game.
This discussion neglects the most important question of all: will President Obama and his delightful family be able to vacation in Historic Williamsburg, Virginia over what remains of the weekend? It had been feared that “The failure of Congress to avoid a government shutdown would cost Mahlia and Sasha Obama a family weekend here with their parents.” Not only that, unless they go President Obama will miss numerous important photo ops, a true national tragedy.
One can only hope that the crucial Williamsburg factor was kept firmly in mind by all in reaching the historic consensus.
Yeah. Sad he missed his campaign appearance in Indiana too. Looks like those incompetent Dems (sarc) in Congress wouldn’t let Bambi call it in.
(BTW, looks as if the Dems are getting good and steamed about O’s “above it all” style….. Primary challenge, anyone??? Fingers crossed.)
This is a battle in a larger war.