Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Smoke And Mirrors: The Budget Deal Barely Cuts Anything


( hat tip Chris at Day by Day, of course)

"There's the corrupt party, and there's the party of stupid" - Pat Caddell

Apparently even the minor victory I thought the Republicans had achieved with the recent budget agreement has turned out to be nothing but smoke and mirrors.

The full details of the deal have finally leaked out, and it's grim, to say the least. When you analyze the $38.5 billion in cuts, it amounts to less than $15 billion.

The inflated total comes from cuts to earmarks, unspent census money, leftover federal construction funding, and $2.5 billion from the most recent renewal of highway programs that can’t be spent anyway because of prior legislation. Another $4.9 billion comes from a Crime Victims Fund that wasn’t due to be spent this year, and $3.5 billion comes from unused spending authority from a program providing health care to children of lower-income families.

Four of Obama’s czars and their budgets are cut from the new deal — but those positions were already being phased out.

The full details of Friday's agreement weren't being released until overnight as it was officially submitted to the House. But the picture already emerging is of legislation financed with a lot of one-time savings and cuts that officially "score" as savings to pay for spending elsewhere, but that often have little to no actual impact on the deficit.



Yes, as I mentioned previously, NPR is going to continue to be the Democrat's mouthpiece at the taxpayer's expense, and Planned Parenthood and funding for ObamaCare will be submitted to the Senate for a vote...where they will likely be easily defeated, even if a few Red State Democrats up for re-election cross party lines.

Believe it or not the new budget will actually still end up being $773 billion higher than it was in 2008, whichwas supposed to be the benchmark for the cuts.

As these nasty little details have leaked out, a number of Republicans with principles and more than a shred of honor have voiced their dismay and may vote against this outrage, since the initial short-term resolution that passed on Friday night expires this Thursday. If the initial vote fails in the House on Thursday morning, it's back to the bargaining table.

As for the rest of us...well, we trusted Boehner, didn't we?

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louielouie said...

my oh my.
i've been reading J/P for, oh, now, for a couple of weeks at least.
and during that time i have detected what i believe is somewhat of a shift in ff position/thinking.
i can remember back before the 2006 election, ff was critical of some of my thinking in an e-mail i sent him. brushing my comments aside as "those people who want to start a third party". at the time, i had no idea what ff was talking about. a third party? but ff knew what he was talking about. so, as i said, here we are a couple weeks later, and boy oh boy it sounds like ff is almost/somewhat come around to some of my thinking. i condition my comment as i do, as ff will never think like the whackjob i am.
but boy oh boy don't ff make it sound good the way he phrases his displeasure with boehner. not even he can cover it up.
just remember, it's ...... all about hussein.

Freedom Fighter said...

Hello Louie,
My chief objection to a third party is exactly that - it's all about defeating Obama and destroying any Democrat control over our government.

That task is much easier if it's a Republican vs. Democrat race, infinitely harder if it's a threesome..remember how Bill Clinton slithered into the Oval Office?

However, if the Republican establishment is going to play these kind of games, it may be necessary.

However, that likely means Obama gets re-elected..and I'm not sure the country can take another four years of him.

So I'm hoping the Republicans get their act together.

If you read how the original Republican party came to be, replacing the Whigs, you'll see there was a very similar dynamic operating.