http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3100575/posts
“The Wall Street Journal - The deal, which goes to the House and Senate for approval in the coming days, marks a major change in the landmark 2011 budget-cutting law, which set in motion 10 years of fiscal austerity, including across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration.
The annual discretionary spending target will be raised to $1.012 trillion in 2014 and $1.014 trillion in 2015 under the accord.
The deal responds to the fears of most Democrats and some Republicans that government spending would be cut too much and too randomly under the next round of the sequester, which was slated to reduce the budget for most domestic and defense programs to $967 billion in 2014, down from $986 billion in 2013.
The depth of conservative opposition will become apparent as lawmakers absorb the details, which were released to the public Tuesday night. To draw support from the GOP’s fiscal conservatives, the deal includes additional deficit-reduction measures: While the agreement calls for a $63 billion increase in spending in 2014 and 2015, it is coupled with $85 billion in deficit reductions over the next 10 years, for a net deficit reduction of $22.5 billion.
The deal achieves some of those savings by extending an element of the 2011 budget law that was due to expire in 2021. The sequester currently cuts 2% from Medicare payments to health-care providers from 2013 through 2021. The new deal extends those cuts to 2022 and 2023.
This deal is simple, really. They are raising the spending cap that was won by the Republicans in 2011. The sequester, which was President Obama’s baby until he discovered the Republicans were going to stiffen their spines and hold him to his proposal, is going to be eased. All for a supposed reduction of the deficit of $22.5 billion over ten years. I would point out that the deficit for fiscal year 2013 is hovering around the $700 billion mark. I would contend cutting $22.5 billion over ten years is setting the mark a bit low.
Here is what is really happening, once again. The Democrats are achieving their never-ending goal of raising spending levels. Republicans are agreeing to that increase, in exchange for supposed spending cuts sometime in the future. I would suggest they hire someone to hold a séance so they can ask President Ronald Reagan about a similar deal he worked out with the Democrats. That didn’t work out so well for Reagan. If he could talk to us now, I’m fairly sure he would be raising his voice in protest to this compromise. He would be telling us we shouldn’t trust the Democrats to come through with their end of the compromise. Looking at the history of previous compromise budget deals with the Democrats, I’m going to say he would be correct.”
Absolutely 0% of this will happen.