Deficits

Is Boehner stupid, blind, ignorant, or perfidious? (I believe it’s #2: He has been blinded by the pervasive corruption of thought, language, deed, and outlook of Washington, DC.) 

This from Dr. Jerry Pournelle’s blog:

There Are No Cuts

Everyone is talking about Draconian cuts to the budget. The President won’t sign the Boehner Plan because of the cuts. Yet there are no cuts in that plan or in any plan proposed.

There are no cuts. None. Zip, Nada, Bupkis, Zero. None.

We need to understand how “budget cuts” are measured. The base line budget projects a $9.5 Trillion Dollar increase in spending over the next ten years. Any reduction in this increase in spending is officially a “cut.” Thus the Republican Deficit Plan mandates an approximate “cut” of $1 Trillion over the next decade in exchange for a rise in the Deficit Limit of $2 Trillion. Note that the $1 T “cut” isn’t assured, since it takes place in the future, and one Congress cannot bind another. (Note that. One Congress cannot bind a future Congress. It might be well to remember this.) But even if the $1 Trillion “cut” is faithfully carried out, the effect is that there will be an $8.5 Trillion increase in spending (and thus in Debt) over the next decade.

Put it this way. If Congress were to freeze spending: we will spend next year precisely what we spent this year on each project, none of them increased and none decreased – if Congress were to do that, the result would officially be a $9.5 Trillion cut. It would be a cut in government pay, in school lunches, in Medicare and Medicaid, to the Army and Navy, to the DOE SWAT team and the Department of Agriculture Pet Bunny Inspectors, a cut to Head Start, a cut the FDA, a cut to – well, you get the idea. Not spending more money every year is a cut, and a freeze on spending is a $9.5 Trillion Cut in Federal Spending. Cuts to school lunches, Medicare, Medicaid – well, we’ve said all that. Not spending more is a cut.

It hasn’t always been this way. Back in the 1960’s a “cut” was actually a cut; if a department’s budget got cut it meant that it got less money. But since the budget acts of the 70’s Federal spending automatically increases year after year and any reduction in that increase is scored as a cut.

So: if we adopt the Boehner Plan, we get what amounts to a $10 Trillion increase in spending over the next decade. And that, we are told, is the best we can hope for, and we ought to wheedle the Democrats and the President graciously to concede to give it to us good and hard.

Let me repeat that because while most of you know it, some don’t, and those who haven’t thought of it will find it hard to believe. A freeze in spending: a mandate that no department of government spend more next year than it spent this year; will be reported as a $9.5 Trillion cut. If Boehner gets all he asks for and then some, say a $1.5 Trillion cut over the next decade, he will have locked in an $8 Trillion increase in government expenditures (and thus the Deficit) over the next ten years. And the Democrats will decry the Draconian cuts in school lunches, education spending, Medicare, etc., etc. And at the moment the “non partisan Congressional Budget Office” believes that Boehner Plan would only “cut” $0.85 Trillion over ten years, meaning $850 Billion, meaning $85 Billion/year. The United States borrows $100 Billion a month.

There are never any actual cuts in spending. No one is proposing any. There are only temporary reductions in spending increases. No Plan by either Party contemplates any actual cut in spending. We are arguing over how much more we will let the deficit rise: $8 Trillion or $10 Trillion. If it only rises by $8 Trillion that will be counted a great victory with a $2 Trillion cut. Be prepared to pay.

Read more