CBO analysis: Spending 'cut' deal doesn't actually cut spending

Jed Lewison for Daily Kos        Wed Apr 13, 2011    

Tea party Republicans are going to love this:

A new budget estimate released Wednesday shows that the spending bill negotiated between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would produce less than 1 percent of the $38 billion in claimed savings by the end of this budget year.

The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would pare just $352 million from the deficit through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending.

When war funding is factored in the legislation would actually increase total federal outlays by $3.3 billion relative to current levels.

Obviously, it's not funny that while domestic priorities were cut, defense spending increased, but these numbers make a mockery of the the claim that the spending cut deal is in fact a spending cut deal.

The CBO's estimate of a $3.3 billion spending increase comes from this document. It shows estimated total discretionary outlays of $1.3614 trillion for FY2011 under the continuing resolution passed last December. For the one congress is about to vote on, the estimated outlays for FY11 grow to $1.3647 trillion.

According to this CBO document, actual total discretionary outlays for FY10 were $1.349 trillion. In other words, that $38.5 billion cut from last year's spending levels? It's actually a $15.7 billion increase.

I can't wait until tea partiers wrap their mind around that math.

Technorati Tags: CBO,Budget Cuts,2011 Budget,Tea,Current Events

Barack’s Budget Speech…

    ….was pretty much what many of us thought that it would be. Obama did say that any of the Republican ideas for changing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security would not happen as long as he was the President. Obama also said that those Bush tax cuts that he approved last year would not be extended at the next go around. One must keep in mind that Obama said he would not extend those same cuts when he was running for office.

   More on this later. Right now I am going over to Red State to read the GOP fans comments and to watch them pull their hair out of their heads.

  Here are some of the comments that have just began to be posted.

we will have to compromise, since it is unlikely that we can wait out the clock financially until January of 2013 (and that even assumes we win the other two branches of government in that election). Ryan’s plan is likely unworkable (from a math standpoint) and Obama’s proposal here simply is too vague (like always) and doesn’t do much to really tackle the problems we face. However, and I really blame what went on during the Bush II years for a lot of this, this compromise will include higher taxes (whether through rate increases or more likely through the elimination of tax expenditures (which I actually agree with)) and it will (much to the D’s chagrin) include significant changes (read as reductions) in social security/medicare/medicaid.   Death_of_the_Donkey

All I heard was blah, blah, blah…it’s Bush’s fault…blah, blah, blah… the rich are not paying their fair share…blah, blah, blah…seniors have to pay for those dastardly rich folks..

Donkey, I disagree…no compromise, there was nothing in the Chosen One’s speech that leads me to believe there’s anything to compromise on. I’ll have no part in facilitating O’s “Progressive Vision for America.”     Lamplighter331

5,289 words of blithering drivel.

  And not a “Hope” in sight.    bradtidwell

Technorati Tags: President,Barack Obama,Budget Cuts,2011 Budget,Red State,Current Events