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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (623029)	8/5/2011 6:14:48 PM
From: FJB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578739

Yes, all these budget proposals assume the government budget/spending will grow EVERY YEAR at a minimum of 8%. This is known as the baseline budget. When they say they have cut the budget, it is just growing at a smaller rate. That is why we are totally F'ed. en.wikipedia.org

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (623029)	8/5/2011 7:26:47 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578739

Are you saying that actual spending will go up and that we are only reducing the increase in actual spending Yes. usgovernmentspending.com And that's as a percentage of a growing GDP. -- Budget Deal Doesn’t Cut Spending Posted by Chris Edwards Republicans and Democrats have come together on a “historic” budget deal that cuts federal spending by more than $2 trillion over 10 years. The Washington Post’s lead story calls the cuts “sharp” and “severe.” However, the budget deal doesn’t cut federal spending at all. House Speaker John Boehner’s bullet points on the deal say that it cuts discretionary spending by $917 billion over 10 years, as “certified by CBO.” These discretionary “cuts” appear to be the same as those in Boehner’s plan from last week. The chart shows CBO’s scoring of those spending cuts (see here and here). Wait a minute, those bars are rising! Spending isn’t being cut at all. The “cuts” in the deal are only cuts from the CBO “baseline,” which is a Washington construct of ever-rising spending. And even these “cuts” from the baseline include $156 billion of interest savings, which are imaginary because the underlying cuts are imaginary. No program or agency terminations are identified in the deal. None of the vast armada of federal subsidies are targeted for elimination. Old folks will continue to gorge themselves on inflated benefits paid for by young families and future generations. None of Senator Tom Coburn’s or Senator Rand Paul’s specific cuts were included. The federal government will still run a deficit of $1 trillion next year. This deal will “cut” the 2012 budget of $3.6 trillion by just $22 billion, or less than 1 percent. The legislation does create a “Joint Committee” to design a second round of at least $1.2 trillion in spending cuts by November. Presumably, interest savings will be included in those “cuts” as well, reducing the amount of actual program cuts needed to about $1 trillion. Will these Joint Committee cuts be real? This deal’s immediate cuts aren’t real, nor were many of the cuts in the 2011 budget deal earlier this year. It won’t be hard by the Joint Committee to manufacture $1 trillion in pretend savings in coming months. cato-at-liberty.org Debt Deal: Spending in Perspective Posted by Tad DeHaven The following chart looks at total projected federal spending according to the Congressional Budget Office’s adjusted March baseline and its score of the debt deal. The chart only considers the reduction in outlays resulting from the deal’s cap on discretionary spending, which the CBO says will save $917 billion over the next ten years. It does not consider the $1.2-$1.5 trillion in future “deficit reduction” that Dan Mitchell discusses here. Excluding outlays for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which are unlikely to materialize, total spending over the next ten years would be about $43 trillion under the discretionary spending caps instead of $44 trillion. In other words, even if Congress holds to the caps — and even if the “deficit reduction” targets established in the bill are achieved — the federal government’s spending binge will continue. If this is a “win” for the limited government crowd, I’d hate to see what the Beltway establishment would consider a “loss.” cato-at-liberty.org Also see heritage.org heritage.org heritage.org heritage.org heritage.org