Over at Contentions, John Podhoretz writes that the recent budget battle to cut the advertised $38.5 billion from the remainder of the 2011 federal budget will only cut around $15 billion, due to a series of accounting tricks. Furthermore, he warns "The budget deal may collapse" as Tea Party-backed freshmen find they've been duped.
If the deal falls apart, the House Republicans should just pass a series of (rider-free) continuous resolutions until October, slicing off a billion each week. The House is only one-third of the budget battle; throw a government shutdown into the hands of Harry Reid and Barack Obama.
But given that we're bleeding money anyway, I would prefer if Washington would just pass the budget and move onto the main event: Paul Ryan's 2012 blueprint. That's the crossroads with one path towards fiscal sanity and the other towards decline.
3 comments:
If the GOP cannot negotiate subway tokens in the current budget, what makes you think they can do better for the next budget?
Well, that's true, but I don't see a point in debating over another five months of the fiscal year. This is all nickel and dime stuff now.
Yeah, the budget deal is an accounting trick - but Rep. Ryan's underwear gnome numbers are OH SO TRULY REAL.
Post a Comment