The Republicans caved on shutting down the government (something that has been done
seventeen times since 1976). They yammered to the world about the painful budget cuts and how they were able to get $38 Billion stricken from the 2011 budget.
Well, the Congressional Budget Office has had a few days to look at the numbers and they do not pencil out. From
The Washington Post:
CBO: Budget deal cuts this fiscal year�s deficit by just $353 million, not $38 billion touted
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.
More:
The CBO study confirms that the measure trims $38 billion in new spending authority, but many of the cuts come in slow-spending accounts like water-and-sewer grants that don�t have an immediate deficit impact.
A separate CBO analysis provided to lawmakers but not released publicly says that $5.7 billion in savings claimed by cutting bonuses to states enrolling more children and reducing the amount of money available to subsidize health care cooperatives authorized under the new health care law won�t produce a dime of actual savings. CBO believes they are simply cuts to spending authority that is unlikely to be used anyway.
But those cuts to mandatory benefit programs, while producing no deficit savings, can be claimed under budget rules to pay for spending increases elsewhere in the legislation. All told, $17.8 million in such savings is claimed but just a tiny portion of it would actually reduce the deficit.
Excuse me -- we want a real cut in spending, we want to reel in the size of government and get it back to it's Constitutional foundation. Who are we? The people who elected you to do our bidding. With news like this, part of me wishes that
Flight 93 had reached its target of the Capitol building. We need to clean out the whole nest and start over...
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