Posted on 12/11/2013 8:44:28 AM PST by Hojczyk
The Democrats hated the sequester, and have been trying to bust it ever since it went into effect. Today, they succeeded. The Ryan/Murray deal pegs FY 2014 spending at $1.012 trillion, which Ryan’s press release described as “about halfway between the Senate budget level of $1.058 trillion and the House budget level of $967 billion.” What Ryan didn’t say is that $967 billion isn’t just the House proposal, it is the discretionary spending limit under current law. The sequester is now out the window.
Republicans did get something in exchange for increasing spending: notably, federal employees will have to increase their pension contributions. But we can say goodbye to the $2.1 trillion in spending cuts that the GOP trumpeted following the 2011 Budget Control Act. That is the real moral of the story–long-term budget agreements are meaningless. Typically, minuscule spending cuts up front are augmented by major cuts in the out-years. But the reality is that the out-years never come. No Congress can bind a future Congress, and political will to reduce spending is always in short supply. Consequently, any spending deal is meaningless,
“‘Compromise has been a dirty word” in Washington, D.C., Murray complained in an evening news conference, but “we have broken through the partisanship and the gridlock.” But wait! The 2011 Budget Control Act was itself a compromise. The $967 billion discretionary spending limit was a compromise, just two years ago. So why should a higher spending number now be lauded as a “compromise”? How about if we reduce spending by another $50 billion, to $917 billion? That would be a compromise too, wouldn’t it? But somehow that isn’t the sort of compromise that is ever entertained in Washington.
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
I, for one, would be looking VERY VERY hard at the financial details for Boehner, Cantor, and McConnell in the fine print. I’d expect there are billions and billions in the making for their states/districts. Traitors.
Mark Levin interviewed Paul Ryan yesterday. What a disappointment the former VP candidate is for conservatives.
Any money saved is a pittance and meaningless as so many have said.
To me, the most important outcome is that the Senate and president no longer have effective control over the power of the purse. This deal, however you characterize it, does achieve that.
And that was one of the ways 0bama was trying to roll us... control the power of the House [spending.] He did this with CRs and politics. That’s gone now.
We still haven’t figured out how to stop him from taking over the judiciary by packing courts.
Ocean. Remove drop of water. Keep the drop with you for six months. Cut drop in half. Return half to ocean. Declare victory over water.
OMFG!
lol it’s not the drop of water that’s good in this deal. No need to pretend it is.
What is a win is that the dems no longer effectively control the purse strings.
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