Cutting Down to the Sweet Juicy Fat
Fred Barnes says the Republicans are winning the budget battle, and David Dayen at Firedoglake seems to agree — but I’m not so certain. Here’s Dayen:
You could make a case that the first $10 billion didn’t have a huge impact, as they went to programs already scheduled to be cut (I don’t totally subscribe to that). But the low-hanging fruit is gone. This $20 billion will hurt.
We’re talking about $20 billion dollars here, or one-half of one percent of a budget that has grown by 25% in the last two years. We’re talking about ditching one fiftieth of the recent increases.
If that’s “hurt,” then we’re not going to make a whole lot of progress until after the 2012 elections — and that’s only if the GOP somehow manages to put up a candidate less unpalatable to the center than Obama is.
My hopes aren’t up this morning.
The OMB has reported that for FY2011, revenues won’t cover mandatory outlays, much less discretionary spending. If we taxed all income over $1 million at 100%, we would still have to cut about $400+ billion to zero the deficit (and still do nothing to help the debt).
So exactly how does $20 billion amount to swat ?
Denial isn’t a river in Egypt.
obama’s budget is about $3.7 trillion. that is $10 billion/day of which 40%, or $4 billion, is debt. the republicans big plan is to cut $61 billion over 7 months. that is about 12 days worth of debt.
i think we need a new plan.
oops. 15 days worth of debt.