Are you sure it wasn’t Boehner saying that any offer of cutting spending over ten years was bogus because no future congress can be bound by the actions of a previous congress?
The whole point was that both Reagan and GHWB were, in their turn, skunked by tax-hiking, spending-reduction deals where the tax hikes went right through but the spending reductions were laughed off.
He’s a RINO but are you saying a politician can’t plan for more than six years down the road? Sort of limiting, isn’t it?
They have to make it appear that they’re doing something significant. Oddly, nobody in the public is fooled. We all understand that the only cuts are cuts to the scheduled increases of this year’s budget.
You see, there are a few suckers here who think a 10 Cut plans sounds reasonable. But history tells a different story. Reagan was promised cuts that never happened, Bush1 Promised cuts that never happened. Bush 2 Never made any cuts, even though the GOP held all three branches of Govt.
In addition, look at the recent CR deal that was supposed to deliver 36 Billion in cuts and only delivered @350 Million in real cuts.
Plus future DC hacks are not bound by Boneheads deal.
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This “10 year plan stuff is utter nonsense!” I’m surprised no on questions it.
What is “agreed on” today means nothing - Obama can, and will, probably ignore or radically change any “deal.” In addition, this Congress only has 1+ year more, and then a new one begins, with its own members and plans. Whatever they “agree to” for 10 years now is just sheer show and fantasy.
You are correct. No agreement to bind a future congress to cutting is enforceable. But any tax increase continues until a future congress passes a bill through both houses, and the President signs. Similarly, debt incurred today will need to be paid in the future.
It works that way because he realizes people like me in their 50’s will have a hard time remembering him in 10 years.
Though it’s certainly a sign of leadership to have a long term plan, these days it is imperative to show progress in the 2012 FY.
WHO IN THE HELL Foisted this doddering cry baby and RINO on us?? They NEED Punished,severely!
Amen.
Bohner has as much say over the next congress as Pelosi has over this congress.
That is why I was so disappointed with the continuing resolution with $358million in cuts and the Ryan plan that balances the budget sometime around 2035.
So far, these arguments in DC are over next to nothing of any meaning.
This is the one thing I do not like about FR.
The blatant racism that tries to be passed off as politics.
Every time Boehner tries to make a sensible argument, he is attacked by people here, just because of his skin color.
If he was white, everyone here would be applauding him.
Bonehead is a butt head. This ten year plan only cuts 370 billion a year which will never happen. Workarounds will nultify it and the debt will just go on. Not to mention the rest of the stupid plan in the works. The balance budget will never be law because it will never get the States to pass and will be years down the road just to find out it failed. These Washington nitwits are totally worthless.
It needs to be cut more than $15 trillion over the next ten years.
WOOOHOOOO! HOORAY Jim Wayne! (nice take)
DEFUND socialist collectives, foreign AND domestic. NOW!
OUTSTANDING thread!
Promising to cut expenditures in the future is nothing more than junkie talk. Heritage Foundation economist JD Foster explains that a promise to cut spending is nothing more than a promise:
“When discretionary spending totals are cut immediately, that’s a spending cut. Such cuts are demonstrably not “pie in the sky,” so it’s fine to tally the effects over the next ten years.
“Similarly, when entitlement programs are altered in law, that’s a spending cut. Again, it’s perfectly appropriate to add up the resultant budgetary ramifications for a reasonable period to give some context for budgeteers.
“But even statutory spending caps, necessary and beneficial though they would be, are ultimately only promises to cut spending, unless they are backed by inescapable, automatic cuts if the caps are breached. Just about everything else is only a promise, and Washington breaks promises with breathtaking regularity.”
No kidding! Ya think?
Any discussions about the budget extending past 2012 are worthless and meaningless.
The only items that can be considered authentic and that will possibly have any actual impact are those that are immediate and specific.
The rest is the same kind of lying double-talk that typifies almost everything politicians say or do.
This is nothing new Congress and presidents have been using those paper games for a very long time to pretend to make cuts that they really have no control or power to actually bring about. Even immediate “cuts” voted in are only valid if they are carried out, and not somehow funded in another way and/or need really cut in the first place.
Clinton’s supposed “balanced budget” that was much vaunted for creating a surplus never actually came to be beyond the paper it was printed on. How? by kicking the cuts down the road.
You see - what it comes down too - by pushing scheduled cuts out to other administrations, to other Congresses, to other people’s shoulders - it is a form of “passing the buck”. You can say you scheduled all sorts of cuts. That is how they can lay claim to making Trillions in cuts to spending... so what if the only REAL cuts (those that happen in the short-term) are minuscule - they CLAIM those big numbers for political reasons. It is a way of playing “wag the dog”.
The only thing that matters right now is... right now. That is why even Boehner is talking about including a raising of the debt limit in the negotiations. With any meaningful cuts, such a raising of the nation’s credit line would be completely unnecessary. This is the key, in my mind, to seeing through the smokescreen on BOTH sides. By playing this game, we are just continuing on the rail to the Greek problem. Raising the debt limit is proof that none of the politicians are serious about cutting spending NOW.