So now what?
On Jul 27, 6:58 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> Boehner Plan Doesn't Cut SpendingChris Edwards • July 27, 2011 @ 12:05 pm
> House Speaker John Boehner is scrambling to revise his budget plan after the CBO found that it would only cut spending by $850 billion, not the $1.2 trillion promised.
> However, the Boehner plan doesn't actually cut spending at all. The chart shows the discretionary spending caps in the Boehner plan. Spending increases every yearfrom $1.043 trillion in 2012 to $1,234 trillion in 2021. (This category of spending excludes the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan).
> The "cuts" in the Boehner plan are only cuts from the CBO baseline, which is an imaginary path of future spending designed as a planning tool for Congress. Boehner can propose to spend any amount in any future year he wants, and in this plan he choose to have a steadily rising spending path.
> The Boehner plan also doesn't cut spending in a more fundamental way. It doesn't lay out any particular programs or agencies to terminate. I'm in favor of spending caps as a secondary enforcement mechanism, but actual cuts have to come first. A caps-only plan like Boehner's just kicks the can down the road. At best, it simply nudges future legislators to actually cut something specific.
> Why doesn't the House leadership propose real cuts? They've certainly got the resources and expertise to do the job. A single senator Tom Coburn produced a 620-page report last week detailing hundreds of programs to cut and terminate. Coburn and his staff read through thousands of articles and reports on the real-world performance of federal programs, and they made a good case for each particular cut they proposed.
> Republican leaders can't hide behind baselines forever. If they really want a smaller government as they keep claiming, they've got to target particular programs and agencies and begin a national debate about terminating them.http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/boehner-plan-doesnt-cut-spending/
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