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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	1/26/2011 11:35:38 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

What's Half a Trillion Dollars Among Friends? Avik Roy The Corner Wed Jan 26, 2011 10:48 For those who see the Congressional Budget Office as the most accurate arbiter of future deficit projections, it’s worth noting that its latest projection for the 2011 budget deficit is $1.5 trillion, or 9.8 percent of GDP. If you don’t find that number astounding on its own merits, note that total projected revenues for 2011 are $2.2 trillion. In other words, taxes would have to go up on every American by 66 percent, at projected levels of economic activity, in order to pay for our 2011 spending commitments, including interest on the debt. What’s ironic is that last year, the CBO projected a 2011 budget deficit of just $980 billion. What’s a $500 billion, 50 percent error among friends? [chart at link] — Avik Roy is an equity research analyst at Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co. in New York City. He blogs on health-care issues at The Apothecary. .

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	2/15/2011 10:17:49 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Examiner Editorial: Obama adds $8.8 trillion in new debt in next decade By: Examiner Editorial 02/14/11 In his Internet video explaining President Obama's fiscal 2012 budget proposal, White House budget director Jack Lew told viewers that as of 2001, "we were running a surplus of $5.6 trillion over the next 10 years." That surplus never actually existed outside of the imaginations of Washington politicians and the green-eyeshade bureaucrats who work for them in the government. Lew's claim is a typical example of how officials mislead the public by using imagined numbers from a fiscal future that may or may not exist, depending on what is done by future politicians. American families don't base their current budgets on possible windfalls or setbacks that may or may not come eight years from now, but our government does. So, as you pore over Obama's new budget, beware the budgeters' tricky talk. When you hear liberal journalists in the mainstream media repeat the line that Obama's new budget "reduces the deficit by $1.1 trillion over 10 years," don't believe it for a second. Obama is not actually reducing the current $1.65 trillion deficit by $1.1 trillion. Rather, Obama plans to borrow $1.1 trillion less than he would have under earlier projections. Those projections, contained on page 174 of the document the White House released Monday, assumed vast expenditures -- trillion or near-trillion-dollar deficits every year through 2021 -- so Obama is clearing a very low bar. Here is a more accurate description of what Obama's 2012 budget plan does: It adds $8.8 trillion in new debt between today and October 2021. That number would be even larger, except that Obama's budget also raises taxes by $1.5 trillion on corporations and high-income earners, imposing higher marginal rates and new limits on charitable and mortgage deductions. In Obama's fiscal 2012 budget, no hard choices are made on the key issue of entitlements, but individuals, families and business owners will still see their taxes go up. And Obama's plan for next year actually includes more discretionary spending than last year at the height of stimulus expenditures. This fact puts some perspective to the comments of Obama's Republican critics. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., remarked that under Obama's plan, "the president's vision of a future of trains and windmills is more important than a balanced checkbook." Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said that "President Obama's budget should have been printed in red ink instead of black." Three months after Americans expressed their deep anxiety over the unwarranted and dangerous explosion of federal spending and power under Obama by giving Republicans their biggest midterm congressional election victory since 1938, Obama is still demonstrating that he doesn't get it -- Americans want government spending cut, government debt eliminated and Washington politicians in both parties to wise up or be replaced. .

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	2/17/2011 7:45:19 AM
From: Sully-	1 Recommendation Respond to of 35834

Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve? Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve? .

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	3/8/2011 11:55:41 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

White House debt commission eyes a second recession BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL By: Hayley Peterson 03/08/11 11:50 AM Examiner Staff Writer Leaders of the White House's deficit commission say the U.S. economy will sink into a second recession if lawmakers do not clamp down on entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare. Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who co-chaired the bipartisan deficit commission last year, warned members of Congress on Tuesday that failing to address bloated entitlement programs and needed tax code reforms could destabilize the nascent economic recovery within two years. “This problem is going to happen long before my grandchildren grow up,” said Bowles, White House chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton. “This is a problem we are going to have to face up to it maybe two years, maybe a little less, maybe a little more.” Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, said he expects a double-dip even sooner. "Our bankers over there in Asia [will] begin to believe we are not going to be solid on our debt, that we are not going to be able to meet our obligations," said Bowles. U.S. debt now stands at $14.1 trillion. "Just stop and think a minute what happens if they stop buying our debt. What happens to interest rates? What happens to the U.S. economy? The markets will absolutely devastate us if we don’t step up to this problem. The problem is real. The solutions are painful, and we have to act.” .

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	3/9/2011 1:16:35 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 35834

Poll: Public Says ‘Cut Spending Now!’ By Brian Bolduc The Corner March 9, 2011 12:00 A.M. A new poll by Resurgent Republic finds that the public is surprisingly receptive to cutting government spending. The survey of 1,000 registered voters asked respondents to compare competing political messages. On spending, 49 percent agreed with the argument that “We have got to stop spending money we don’t have.” By contrast, the statements, “We have got to stop mortgaging our children’s future,” and, “We have got to stop bankrupting the country,” received 20 and 18 percent, respectively. There’s more good news for the GOP: Sixty-two percent agreed with “Republicans who say we need to cut significant federal spending through the rest of this fiscal year” versus “Democrats who say we should continue federal spending at close to the current level.” Even Democrats, by a margin of 52 to 35 percent, thought the deficit was a result of too much spending. Nonetheless, Republicans face familiar pitfalls. Fifty-three percent agreed with the statement that “We should not balance the budget on the backs of our seniors and the poor. We need to cut back federal spending, but Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid should be off limits.” That said, in a conference call with reporters, former GOP chairman Ed Gillespie and Republican pollster Whit Ayres remained optimistic about the GOP’s chances for convincing voters about the need for entitlement reform. “The conventional wisdom in Washington is that voters like spending cuts in theory but they don’t like spending cuts in reality,” said Gillespie. “That’s the conventional wisdom because that’s where voters have been. What this survey reveals is there’s been a change in that approach.” Indeed, even when respondents heard the argument that “these proposed cuts will destroy American jobs and hurt middle-class families, young adults, seniors, and veterans,” they still favored the Republican message by 60 to 34 percent. “I’m more optimistic than I have been in years,” Ayres said about Republicans’ chances for a successful public-education campaign about the entitlement crisis. “The environment out there right now is as open to an honest or an adult conversation as I’ve ever seen it,” Gillespie concurred. Read the full results herehere. .

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	3/29/2011 9:33:23 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Obama's former top economist raps him over lack of engagement on entitlement reform Beltway Confidential By: Michael Barone 03/25/11 5:22 PM Here’s a story from Politico that’s not getting enough ink: ten former chairmen of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers have signed a letter urging the White House—urging Barack Obama, actually—to start negotiating actively with Republicans as well as Democrats on entitlement reforms. Key grafs: <<< As former chairmen and chairwomen of the Council of Economic Advisers, who have served in Republican and Democratic administrations, we urge that the Bowles-Simpson report, ‘The Moment of Truth,’ be the starting point of an active legislative process that involves intense negotiations between both parties. There are many issues on which we don’t agree. Yet we find ourselves in remarkable unanimity about the long-run federal budget deficit: It is a severe threat that calls for serious and prompt attention. >>> The chairmen are diplomatic enough to phrase this as an appeal to both parties and both the executive and legislative branch. But don't let that mislead you. This is really a direct appeal to — and an implicit but sharp criticism of — President Obama. For there are already negotiations going on between six senators, three Democrats (Kent Conrad, Dick Durbin, Mark Warner) and three Republicans (Mike Crapo, Saxby Chambliss, Tom Coburn), on this subject. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has promised to include entitlements changes in the budget he will present next month. House Democrats are missing from the action, as one might expect, but that’s not terribly important at this stage: bills can pass the House without them. The elephant not in the room on this issue is Obama, who had time to burn for a White House event on schoolyard bullying, but couldn’t find time to consult members of Congress about military action in Libya. All ten of the economists signing the letter are, to the best of my knowledge, well respected scholars. Six of them are Republicans, and their endorsement of the letter is not terribly surprising. But four are Democrats, Charles Schultze (CEA Chairman 1977-81), Laura Tyson (1993-95), Martin Bailly (1999-2001) and Christina Romer (2009-10). It’s particularly interesting, and a withering comment on Obama, that Romer decided to sign the letter. I don’t know her, but I gather that her scholarly work is very good and from her television appearances I got the impression that she’s an extremely nice person. Her assurance that the February 2009 stimulus package would hold unemployment under 8 percent proved to be highly embarrassing, but I gather she’s right in saying that most economists didn’t expect unemployment to rise nearly as high as it did at the time she made that statement. From time to time CEA chairmen are called on to defend the indefensible, and this was her time. Her resignation after two years was taken by some conservatives as a sign of anger at the president; I doubt this very much, since it’s standard practice for academic economists to return to their academic posts after two years in order to retain tenure. Anyway, it’s surprising to me that more ink is not being spilled on Romer’s endorsement of this letter. It really is newsworthy. .

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	4/5/2011 8:58:03 AM
From: Sully-	2 Recommendations Respond to of 35834

Ryan says GOP budget will reduce deficits by $4.4 trillion, spend $6.2 trillion less than Obama Beltway Confidential By: Philip Klein 04/04/11 7:41 PM House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on Tuesday will release a 10-year budget plan that claims to reduce deficits by $4.4 trillion and spend $6.2 trillion less than President Obama proposed in his budget, Ryan wrote in an op-ed posted on the Wall Street Journal's website. The proposal, according to Ryan, will also reduce spending to below 20 percent of gross domestic product, returning it to the post-war average. It would return discretionary spending to below the 2008 levels, and then keep it there for five years. "The savings proposals are numerous, and include reforming agricultural subsidies, shrinking the federal work force through a sensible attrition policy, and accepting Defense Secretary Robert Gates's plan to target inefficiencies at the Pentagon," he wrote. The proposal would also block grant Medicaid to states and change Medicare for those under 55 into a system that would allow beneficiaries to choose among subsidized plans. The value of the subsidy would vary so that poorer and sicker beneficiaries would receive more than richer and healthier ones. "Our budget targets corporate welfare, starting by ending the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that is costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars," he writes. "It gets rid of the permanent Wall Street bailout authority that Congress created last year. And it rolls back expensive handouts for uncompetitive sources of energy, calling instead for a free and open marketplace for energy development, innovation and exploration." His plan, called the "Path to Prosperity," would also simplify the tax code by eliminatinating loopholes and deductions and bringing down corporate and individual rates so that the changes are revenue neutral. Ryan cites work done by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects suggesting that "the plan will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year and bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade." .

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	4/5/2011 9:28:25 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Spending Cuts Gary Varvel creators.com

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	4/5/2011 9:38:37 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The Budget Pie Illustrated Michael Ramirez creators.com

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	4/5/2011 10:10:15 AM
From: Sully-	1 Recommendation Respond to of 35834

The GOP Path to Prosperity Our budget cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years and puts the nation on track to pay off our national debt.. WSJ Opinion By PAUL D. RYAN Congress is currently embroiled in a funding fight over how much to spend on less than one-fifth of the federal budget for the next six months. Whether we cut $33 billion or $61 billion—that is, whether we shave 2% or 4% off of this year's deficit—is important. It's a sign that the election did in fact change the debate in Washington from how much we should spend to how much spending we should cut. But this morning the new House Republican majority will introduce a budget that moves the debate from billions in spending cuts to trillions. America is facing a defining moment. The threat posed by our monumental debt will damage our country in profound ways, unless we act. No one person or party is responsible for the looming crisis. Yet the facts are clear: Since President Obama took office, our problems have gotten worse. Major spending increases have failed to deliver promised jobs. The safety net for the poor is coming apart at the seams. Government health and retirement programs are growing at unsustainable rates. The new health-care law is a fiscal train wreck. And a complex, inefficient tax code is holding back American families and businesses. The president's recent budget proposal would accelerate America's descent into a debt crisis. It doubles debt held by the public by the end of his first term and triples it by 2021. It imposes $1.5 trillion in new taxes, with spending that never falls below 23% of the economy. His budget permanently enlarges the size of government. It offers no reforms to save government health and retirement programs, and no leadership. Our budget, which we call The Path to Prosperity, is very different. For starters, it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion. A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage's analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year. Here are its major components: • Reducing spending: This budget proposes to bring spending on domestic government agencies to below 2008 levels, and it freezes this category of spending for five years. The savings proposals are numerous, and include reforming agricultural subsidies, shrinking the federal work force through a sensible attrition policy, and accepting Defense Secretary Robert Gates's plan to target inefficiencies at the Pentagon. • Welfare reform: This budget will build upon the historic welfare reforms of the late 1990s by converting the federal share of Medicaid spending into a block grant that lets states create a range of options and gives Medicaid patients access to better care. It proposes similar reforms to the food-stamp program, ending the flawed incentive structure that rewards states for adding to the rolls. Finally, this budget recognizes that the best welfare program is one that ends with a job—it consolidates dozens of duplicative job-training programs into more accessible, accountable career scholarships that will better serve people looking for work. As we strengthen and improve welfare programs for those who need them, we eliminate welfare for those who don't. Our budget targets corporate welfare, starting by ending the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that is costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. It gets rid of the permanent Wall Street bailout authority that Congress created last year. And it rolls back expensive handouts for uncompetitive sources of energy, calling instead for a free and open marketplace for energy development, innovation and exploration. • Health and retirement security: This budget's reforms will protect health and retirement security. This starts with saving Medicare. The open-ended, blank-check nature of the Medicare subsidy threatens the solvency of this critical program and creates inexcusable levels of waste. This budget takes action where others have ducked. But because government should not force people to reorganize their lives, its reforms will not affect those in or near retirement in any way. Starting in 2022, new Medicare beneficiaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health-care program that members of Congress enjoy. Future Medicare recipients will be able to choose a plan that works best for them from a list of guaranteed coverage options. This is not a voucher program but rather a premium-support model. A Medicare premium-support payment would be paid, by Medicare, to the plan chosen by the beneficiary, subsidizing its cost. In addition, Medicare will provide increased assistance for lower- income beneficiaries and those with greater health risks. Reform that empowers individuals—with more help for the poor and the sick—will guarantee that Medicare can fulfill the promise of health security for America's seniors. We must also reform Social Security to prevent severe cuts to future benefits. This budget forces policy makers to work together to enact common-sense reforms. The goal of this proposal is to save Social Security for current retirees and strengthen it for future generations by building upon ideas offered by the president's bipartisan fiscal commission. • Budget enforcement: This budget recognizes that it is not enough to change how much government spends. We must also change how government spends. It proposes budget-process reforms—including real, enforceable caps on spending—to make sure government spends and taxes only as much as it needs to fulfill its constitutionally prescribed roles. • Tax reform: This budget would focus on growth by reforming the nation's outdated tax code, consolidating brackets, lowering tax rates, and assuming top individual and corporate rates of 25%. It maintains a revenue-neutral approach by clearing out a burdensome tangle of deductions and loopholes that distort economic activity and leave some corporations paying no income taxes at all. This is America's moment to advance a plan for prosperity. Our budget offers the nation a model of government that is guided by the timeless principles of the American idea: free-market democracy, open competition, a robust private sector bound by rules of honesty and fairness, a secure safety net, and equal opportunity for all under a limited constitutional government of popular consent. We can reform government so that people don't have to reorient their lives for less. We can grow our economy, promote opportunity, and encourage upward mobility. This budget is the new House majority's answer to history's call. It is now up to all of us to keep America exceptional. Mr. Ryan, a Republican, represents Wisconsin's first congressional district and serves as chairman of the House Budget Committee. .

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	4/7/2011 10:49:22 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Ryan’s Brave Budget Rep. Paul Ryan realizes we are headed to fiscal Armageddon. Does President Obama? Michael Barone nationalreview.com ‘My worst experience was the financial crisis of September 2008,” responded House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan yesterday to a reporter’s question about Democrats’ attacks on the budget he unveiled earlier in the day. “What if the president and your representative saw it coming and could have prevented it from happening?” Ryan said. “What would you think of them if they didn’t?” A hush came over the audience at the American Enterprise Institute (where I am a resident fellow). It was Ryan’s way of saying that the financial meltdown arrived largely without warning, while the impending fiscal crunch is like a runaway freight train. “This is the most predictable crisis in the history of our country,” he went on. “We are on our path to a debt crisis” like those we’ve seen recently in Europe, with the national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product rising, under Barack Obama’s budget, past the 90 percent danger point on its way to 800 percent. At some point in between, as Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff explains in the Financial Times, interest rates spike upward and the government is forced to make draconian cuts. Those Social Security checks? They can be scratched at any time, as the Supreme Court held in Flemming v. Nestor in 1960. Congress can do that just as quickly as it voted $700 billion to bail out the banks in fall 2008. Ryan’s budget attempts to prevent that by restructuring taxes and spending programs so that the national debt as a percentage of GDP will start sliding down. Tax rates would be lowered and the tax base broadened, much as Congress did in 1986. Federal spending would revert to 2008 levels and be frozen for five years. Corporate-welfare programs, including green energy, would be ended. Defense spending would be at the levels recommended by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Medicaid would be converted into block grants to the states, which would give them new incentives to hold down costs. Medicare would be converted, for those now under 55, to a program like federal employees’ health-benefit plans and the Medicare prescription-drug program. Seniors would have a choice of plans and would receive “premium support,” federal supplements varying in size depending on income and health. As Ryan says, this resembles welfare reform in the 1990s — one of the great public-policy successes of recent times. Ryan’s budget is a brave attempt to reverse the Obama Democrats’ vast increase in the size and scope of government. The premise of their policies was that people can’t make rational choices to take care of themselves and are better off depending on centralized experts to limit those choices. Ryan’s budget is based on the idea that people are capable of making decisions for themselves. And that the cumulative result of all those decisions, made by millions of people, will be greater productivity, creativity, and protection than can ever be achieved by a few experts through centralized command and control. This is not an approach recommended by campaign consultants. Their conventional wisdom says that you never, ever recommend any changes in programs like Medicare. Such advice has been heeded by the former community organizer now in the White House. “Hope and change” was a nice theme for an out-party candidate in 2008. But the status quo and fear-mongering seems to be the approach for the in-party candidate who this week announced the beginning of his 2012 campaign. In the short term, Ryan’s budget resolution will likely be adopted in the Republican-controlled House and not even considered in the Democratic-majority Senate. Most of it will probably not become law this year. But it’s also likely to shape the economic platform for the Republican presidential nominee in 2012. None of the current potential candidates has come up with anything so comprehensive. Some have already stepped up and praised Ryan’s plan. But the political risk may be greater for the other side. “To be in a secure place for re-election,” writes Mark Penn, a key strategist for Bill Clinton in 1996, “President Obama has some tasks ahead of him that will give him the edge when (the Republican) field is narrowed.” The first task, Penn writes, is to “take over leadership of the budget fight to turn it into a win for him and fiscal sanity.” It seems that Penn agrees with Ryan that American voters realize that we are headed to fiscal Armageddon and that major changes must be made while we have time. What will they think of a president who disagrees? — Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner. © 2011 The Washington Examiner.

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	4/9/2011 4:56:38 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

H/T to Lindybill: Beldar on the budget deal to keep the government open from BeldarBlog by Beldar In response to the just-announced compromise reached by Congress to keep the federal government open, I have three immediate observations: This is only a start. But there must be a start, and as starts go, given that the GOP only controls the House of Representatives, this is a good one. As I write this, I'm watching Barack Obama on TV with the Washington Monument in the background. Obama's practically claiming that he's going to be meeting tourists there tomorrow morning to punch their entry tickets. It is absolutely delicious to watch this politician brazenly pretend that he — Barack Obama — just done a great and brave thing by agreeing to these tens of billions in budget cuts, when every person in the entire world who's watching this knows he and his party are responsible for the spending orgy this deal begins to reverse. Sometimes, as a lawyer, I'm perfectly happy for a hostile witness to tell a huge, huge whopper while he's in the spotlight — a lie so obvious that it settles over the courtroom like the smell from a crate of rotten eggs that's just been hurled to the floor. "Stinky" Obama just did that. You watch, he'll end up eventually trying to take credit for Rep. Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" — Obama intends to run for reelection as a fiscal moderate (again)! But no lie could be more obvious. Politics is sometimes very subtle, but this hasn't been. The causal connection between last November's election and today's budget cuts is as clear as anything in American history — on the same order of obviousness as Lincoln's election and the bombardment of Fort Sumter to start the Civil War. Good job, Speaker Boehner & Co. I am proud of my party's Congressional leadership, and it's been a while since I've felt that way.

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	4/9/2011 5:09:07 AM
From: Sully-	1 Recommendation Respond to of 35834

Remarkable By Kathryn Jean Lopez The Corner April 8, 2011 11:25 P.M. Harry Reid had to agree to bring both Planned Parenthood funding and an Obamacare repeal to a vote. I am not holding my breath for wins, but it is a concession to frustrated voters — represented by the House in these negotiations — all the same. It seems the House got cuts. The House got votes. The House did good, in what was only still the beginning of the fight.

To: Sully- who wrote (35610)	4/9/2011 5:27:19 AM
From: Sully-	1 Recommendation Respond to of 35834

[T]he narrative constantly pushed by Democrats and the media — that “extreme” Tea Party members would force him to shut down the government — never materialized. Boehner Wins Big By Andrew Stiles The Corner April 9, 2011 2:21 A.M. President Obama’s 2011 budget called for a spending increase of $40 billion. Tonight, he touted a bipartisan agreement on “the largest annual spending cut in our history” — some $38.5 billion [emphasis added]. All told, he got $78.5 billion less than he originally requested. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) didn’t want to cut anything at first. But bowing to political reality, eventually ponied up about $4.7 billion in cuts. He ended up with $33.8 billion less spending than he wanted. And he called it an “historic” accomplishment. (Not surprisingly, the left is appalled). House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), on the other hand, initially proposed $32 billion in spending cuts. House Republicans, led by an undaunted freshman class, bumped that number up to $61 billion ($100 billion off the president’s budget), before settling on $38.5 billion. That’s $6.5 billion more than Boehner asked for to begin with, and $5.5 billion more than the $33 billion that Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats claimed had been agreed to less than two weeks ago. It remains to be seen how much of that will be cuts to discretionary spending, but all told it would appear that we’'ll see a substantial reduction in baseline spending that will yield hundreds of billions in savings over the next decade. But unlike Obama and Reid, the speaker didn’t quite feel the need to pat himself on the back over it. “We fought to keep government spending down,” he told reporters in a brief speech after the deal was announced. And they’ll keep fighting, because the biggest battles — over the debt limit and the 2012 budget — are still to come. As Boehner himself repeated throughout this debate, “Republicans control just one-half of one-third of the federal government.” And yet look out the outcome. Perhaps more significant than the $38.5 billion in cuts, which Boehner told members was “the best deal we could get,” are the political implications as both side prepare to tackle the bigger spending issues. “We’ve changed the conversation,” said freshman Rep. Tim Griffin (R., Ark.). “This year we’re talking about how much we’re going to reduce — cut — and that’s a major cultural shift in a matter of months.” Indeed, Harry’s Reid dramatic shift on spending cuts — from denouncing the initial GOP offer ($32 billion) as “draconian” and “unworkable,” to celebrating a $38.5 billion spending cut as “historic” — is remarkable in and of itself. Also telling was the way that Democrats artificially inflated the amount of cuts being offered. (At least they care enough about the political sensibilities of American voters to lie to them about it). Of course, not all conservatives are pleased with the outcome. Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), told NRO that he would vote against the deal and predicted a “significant number of no votes” from conservative and freshman members of the Republican Study Committee, which he chairs. Reps. Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.) and Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) both said they were “disappointed” by with the final deal (both are also seeking higher office). Boehner might need a few Democratic votes to pass the deal — that was always a likely outcome. But the narrative constantly pushed by Democrats and the media — that “extreme” Tea Party members would force him to shut down the government — never materialized. As a result, not only does it look like Boehner got the best deal in terms of spending cuts, but he also comes off as the most reasonable actor in the debate, the one who worked the hardest to reach a compromise. Republicans should feel plenty confident heading into the upcoming debates over the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget. This deal, thanks to Boehner’s robust leadership, was a good start. But it’s only the beginning.