The Budget Deal May Collapse

Commentary ^ | 04/12/2011 | John Podhertz

[OldDeckHand]

The big news today is that the $38.5 billion in budget cuts announced with such fanfare on Friday night mostly aren’t real. A good deal of it involves money from previous years and previous budgets that hasn’t actually been spent. As the AP puts it, the budget deal is

financed with a lot of one-time savings and cuts that officially ‘score’ as savings to pay for spending elsewhere,

-snip-

The total amount actually cut appears to be somewhere between $8 and $14 billion.

The politics here are very complicated now. On the one hand, polls suggest the public is overwhelmingly in favor of there having been a deal, around 60 percent or so. On the other, politically engaged people on both the Right and the Left are profoundly upset by what they take to be unprincipled caving on the part of the leaders of the two parties.

-snip-

And then, all of a sudden, there will be a shutdown. And no plan to end it. And make no mistake—the public will blame the GOP.

[RobRoy]

This sums up my position pretty well and I quote someone I heard a few decades ago:

“Where would the early church have been if they put their faith in Rome?”

[rushmom]

Read the rest of what I wrote.

[RobRoy]

It is an exercise in futility to cast blame. It is time to look forward to responsibility - each of us is responsible for what happens to us an our own family. No democrat, republicn, libertarian or utopian will fix this. It is too late.

Your most powerful weapon is your faith in the blood of Jesus. We are about to enter what the bible calls the worst time in human history. It is extremely obvious, for there is no human solution to this problem.

IMO.

Hence my tagline.

[Noamie]

Well, I don’t disagree with anything that you wrote except to say I took a look at the Presidential Approval index and compared Clinton to Obama and it would be more fair to say that they are “as” popular as each other. Obama is not blowing clinton out of the water. :)

[Theophilus]

while they completely ignore the very real political reality that will result.

Our nation's "political reality" has been ignoring every other reality for over 100 years. When is the "political reality" going to wake up?

[Theophilus]

I want it to collapse of its own weight

O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines

[RobRoy]

>>hink Germany 1933<<

Interesting you use that example. I have said for several months that the whole world seems like Poland in August of 1939.

And September is just around the corner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Poland

[kcvl]

The total amount actually cut appears to be somewhere between $8 and $14 billion.

WHAT?!!!

[Prokopton]

Can we please get rid of the crybaby now?!

[RobRoy]

>>O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines<<

I suspect many of us will have a fate similar to Samson’s.

[Oldpuppymax]

You mean weasely little limp-wristed RINOs latched onto something phony, just to make it look as though they were DOING something??!! Wow....am I surprised!!!

[editor-surveyor]

Podhertz is a putz.

The people want the cuts, that’s why the GOP got control of the house. Failure to deliver them will sour the flip-flop voters in a big way.

Cut now - cut deep.

[I am Richard Brandon]

"Boehner should offer three options."

Ignore (1) & (2) - I'll take #3.

[glorgau]

No matter what happens, the GOP is going to get blamed.

Looks like Team Obama is trying to get a crisis _before_ they present their “new, improved, we really mean it this time 2012 budget proposal”.

[paulycy]

Is Boehner fundamentally lying to us or is he a complete dupe?

I really want to know.

[Spartan79]

Yes. The public, egged on by a ferocious media blitz, will blame the GOP. But the shutdown will drag on. The MSM will tire of the steady stream of shots of crying children outside the locked gates of Yellowstone. The sun will still come up in the east and go down in the west. Baby's will be born, and seniors will move on. Food will still be on the shelves of grocery stores. Gasoline prices will stabilize as 100s of thousands of civil serpents stay home. Tornados, and continued Japanese nuclear woes, and strife in Libya, and bombs in Iraq, will drive the "shut-down train wreck" news to page 2, then page 3. After a month, it will suddenly dawn on an increasing number of Americans that non-essential government services are, actually, nonessential, and democrats will be scrambling to find a way to end the impasse, fearful that the serfs may realize that the country doesn't really actually need a Department of Education, a Department of Commerce, a Department of Energy. In fact, it may dawn on many that things are actually going better without all-of-the-above.

[Fraxinus]

When governments collapse because they can no longer pay their bills, or because inflation spirals out of control, what happens next is not more libertarian. Quit the opposite, in fact. The central government becomes stronger - think Germany 1933 or even the US circa 1929. FDR didn't stay in power for 3-terms preaching limited federal government, did he?

There is a history of governments losing legitimacy due to lack of money, the results fall into three categories, Foreign takeover (1890's China), Domestic Strongman (1930's Germany), and Splintering into successor states (Roman Empire, Soviet Union). The Russian Empire managed to do all three in succession following the end of the Romanov Dynasty at the end of WWI. No matter which way it goes it is not pleasant.

[dervish]

How much money would the government save by shutting down?

[OldDeckHand]

Absolutely, positively ZERO. Any wages not paid, would be paid immediately after the budget impasse was ended.

Buildings would still be heated. Lights would still be on. Then, after it ends, imagine all the overtime that's paid "catching up" on work.

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

Truth.

Ryan doesn’t even get the deficit fir THIS year right in his Plan.

Under his Plan, a child born today won’t see a balanced budget until their mid twenties. That is assuming all his economic projections work out the way he hopes and on that, again he can’t even get THIS year’s deficit right.