On Mar 10, 12:24 pm, Tommy News <
tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A Breach of Trust
>
> The hard-fought deal that settled last year's debt-ceiling fight made
> painfully deep cuts in spending, but it promised one thing: a year's
> peace from the destructive Congressional battles that led to threats
> of government shutdowns and defaults. By signing the pact, Republican
> and Democratic leaders set spending levels for 2013, putting off
> further budget wars until after the election.
>
> But now a coalition of extreme conservatives in the House wants to
> break the budget agreement and cut spending below the agreed level,
> and the House Budget Committee seems willing to go along.
>
> Reneging on the agreement would not only endanger vital programs like
> Head Start, but it would erase the thin residue of trust left in
> Congress. It would clearly demonstrate that the current House cannot
> be trusted to live up to its own pledges.
>
> When Republicans created the debt-ceiling crisis in August, their
> principal goal was to cut spending, and they got their wish. By
> threatening a government default, they forced an agreement, negotiated
> by Speaker John Boehner, that cut $2.3 trillion from the budget over a
> decade without a dime of new taxes. That includes more than $800
> billion cut from nondefense discretionary spending, in vital areas
> like education, housing assistance, transportation, public health and
> veterans benefits.
>
> For fiscal year 2013, the agreement set a discretionary spending level
> of $1.047 trillion. Though far too low, that level at least let
> appropriators in both the House and Senate know how much they had to
> spend, and House Republicans crowed about it at the time. "The Budget
> Control Act represents a victory for those committed to controlling
> government spending and growing our economy," said Representative Paul
> Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee. Now members of the
> Republican Study Committee, the most right-wing members of the House,
> want to bring the 2013 level down to $931 billion, an unimaginable 11
> percent cut in a single year. House officials say Mr. Ryan's committee
> is unlikely to cut that much but could bring 2013 spending down to
> $1.028 trillion.
>
> That $19 billion cut, on top of the ones already agreed to, could have
> terrible consequences. Assuming it was applied evenly to all
> nondefense programs, it would mean that 50,000 children would lose
> access to Head Start; 20,000 families would lose child-care slots; and
> 10,500 teachers and their aides would lose their jobs.
>
> With the Senate sticking to the agreed-upon spending limit, a lower
> House number could lead to a clash between the chambers that raises
> the prospect of another government shutdown. Democrats say they are
> furious that the agreement could be undercut. "If House Republicans
> walk away from the agreement their own speaker made less than a year
> ago, then they will show that a deal with them isn't worth the paper
> it's printed on," said Senator Patty Murray, who led the Democrats on
> the budget "supercommittee" last year. If Mr. Boehner is to retain any
> credibility as a leader of the House and a responsible lawmaker, he
> needs to extinguish this rebellion and make it clear that a deal is a
> deal.
>