Posted on 02/09/2011 8:41:55 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The “revolt” ends in triumph according to Roll Call, as quoted by K-Lo at the Corner:
House Republican leaders have agreed to a key conservative demand that they make good on their campaign pledge to reduce fiscal 2011 spending to $100 billion less than President Barack Obama’s budget request, GOP aides said Wednesday.
According to a GOP leadership aide, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and other leaders are working with Republican appropriators, the Republican Study Committee and other conservatives on a “unified” strategy to reduce spending beyond the $74 billion in cuts they had already planned. The cuts, which would only apply to non-defense discretionary spending, would come as part of a continuing resolution to fund the government between March and the end of the fiscal year…
It remains unclear how Republicans will make the additional $26 billion in cuts.
Consider this a correction of my earlier post, where I said the GOP had initially proposed only $58 billion in cuts. If you’re wondering what the extra $26 billion means in practical terms, let’s bust out the calculator and do some math. Assuming CBO’s projected deficit this year of $1.5 trillion, i.e. $1,500 billion, we’re slipping $4.1 billion deeper into the budgetary hole every single day. Note well: That’s not federal spending per day, that’s what’s being added to the deficit per day. Cutting an extra $26 billion will thus erase a little less than … one week of new liabilities. That’s what the big “revolt” is over.
Via RCP, say it with me: The deficit is too damn high.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
NASA climate programs being eyed for the budget axe ( Yes,...start with Jim Hansen's GISS....)
Fuzzy math, it was reported earlier today that they were going go whole hog and maybe cut spending 32billion. Who is lying to who here.
Attention RINO’s
All your base are belong to us.
Signed, tea party.
I thought it was a $34 billion cut.
So it begins. This is what I’ve been waiting for to see if it would happen. I wondered if the conservatives wouldn’t balk.
Report: House GOP in revolt against leadership, demanding steeper budget cuts
******************************************
posted at 5:48 pm on February 9, 2011 by Allahpundit
Actually, says Rich Lowry, they’re “almost” in open revolt, which means … I’m not sure.
We’re hearing that the Republican Study Committee and GOP freshmen were almost in open revolt at the Republican conference this morning over the initial round of cuts set out by Paul Ryan. The Ryan ceiling falls shorts of the headline number of $100 billion set out in the Pledge, and is therefore considered vastly insufficient. Says a source familiar with the meeting, “It sent a clear unequivocal message to leadership — ‘Houston, you’ve got a problem.’” The leadership assured conservatives at a RSC lunch later in the day that the message had been received. Says a GOP leadership aide, “The bill that passes the House will cut substantially more.”…
A GOP aide close to House conservatives tells NRO: “If the bill that comes to the floor next week does not get to the $100 billion mark ($378 billion in total non-security spending for the year), our plan has always been to offer an amendment to close the gap. So if they come in at $420 billion for non-security, we’d go for another $42 billion in cuts to get down to the $378 billion total. Leadership has said that their plan is just the ‘first bite at the apple.’ We understand that, but a lot of conservatives just think the first bite needs to be bigger.”
Cantor claimed after today’s lunch with Obama that “we’re serious about cutting spending,” but the rebellion against the GOP’s proposal was already underway last night when Jeff Flake and Cynthia Lummis voted against it on the Appropriations Committee because it didn’t go far enough. They want to cut $100 billion this year, the figure Republicans initially promised to trim in the Pledge to America before they started inching away from it and settled on the new figure of $58 billion. Which is super, but even that larger figure is less than 10 percent of the $1.5 trillion deficit that’s projected for this year. It’s a token cut, more significant as a signal to the base that “we mean business” than a meaningful dent in fiscal insanity.
I think it’s this simple: If a Balanced Budget Amendment doesn’t gain serious traction in Congress soon — the debt ceiling debate might be its only hope — then realistically only a fiscal catastrophe will force the feds to balance their books. Even Rand Paul, who’s pushing a whopping $500 billion in cuts, acknowledges that that’s merely a first step given the magnitude of the problem. In fact, I wonder if the “open revolt” is a bit of kabuki being practiced by the House GOP to make them look like uncompromising hardliners on spending despite the fact that the deeper cuts they’re demanding are still comparatively insignificant. The media’s practicing that kabuki too: Behold CNN describing the proposed cuts of $58 billion as “massive” even though that figure represents just three percent or so of this year’s deficit. And here’s a new piece from National Journal lamenting the fact that Obama’s budget proposal would cut $3 billion in federal energy assistance to the poor, which will achieve instant talking-point status on the left as a rationale for deficit spending into oblivion.
Kent Conrad, who made himself a lame duck a few weeks ago when he said he won’t run again, is going to take a shot today at convincing Senate Democrats that the debt really, truly is a looming disaster that needs to be dealt with ASAP. That’s also super, but the only way to seriously deal with the debt is through entitlement reform, and neither party will be touching that with a presidential election next year. (That’s why they keep tossing this political football around.) But even talking about it is progress at this point. I think. I hope?
Too bad they can't defund Obama's salary. He never does any work. Destroying America doesn't count!
See #7.
In other words they are making promises, pass this and we promise *wink* to get more later.
They NEED to cut $1.5 TRILLION this year. That simple.
Departments of Energy & Education
ATF
How much are those 3 per year?
$100 Billion dollars is a joke, we have a $1.5 Trillion budget deficit and add $1.8 Trillion to the National Debt and these guys are kidding themselves.
We can’t just reduce the deficit by 7 or 8% Boehner and the leadership is only willing to do 2 or 3% of the deficit and 1% of spending.
ATF "
HHS
HUD
Fed Reserve
IRS
DOJ
FDA
FFA
“We can’t just reduce the deficit by 7 or 8% Boehner and the leadership is only willing to do 2 or 3% of the deficit and 1% of spending.”
It’s actually more than it seems. Once you pull out debt interest, entitlements, and defense, there’s not that much left and some of the remaining (like courts and border control...lol) are legitimate expenditures.
The BIG PRIZE is Social Security - basically turning it into a welfare program, with means-testing. That’s where the real savings comes in.
FCC
I forgot one of the worst, EPA.
“The BIG PRIZE is Social Security - basically turning it into a welfare program, with means-testing. That’s where the real savings comes in.”
So you are advocating rewarding the lazy bums with retirement while the people who actually paid into the system get screwed. Thanks a lot.
Big savings are also in the Pentagon (mistakenly generalized as “defense spending). If we closed down those bases in 120 countries, we could make a tremendous savings. Unfortuately, Rand Paul has proposed the only plan which makes any cuts in the Pentagon.
It's already weasel time for the GOP House? This sounds like the old "the cuts are not really less money than last year, but rather are less of an increase than was planned" scam the scumbag politicians have been pulling forever. Really? Republicans are "cutting" Ubanga's insanely bloated budget request and expecting people to believe that they are fiscally responsible??
How freaking disappointing...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.