Boehner’s Wool, Your Eyes
House Speaker John Boehner’s new budget proposal would require deep cuts in the years immediately ahead in Social Security and Medicare benefits for current retirees, the repeal of health reform’s coverage expansions, or wholesale evisceration of basic assistance programs for vulnerable Americans.
The plan is, thus, tantamount to a form of “class warfare.” If enacted, it could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.
This may sound hyperbolic, but it is not. The mathematics are inexorable. …Robert Greenstein, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities
If you want a non-partisan analysis and probity, you won’t do better than Greenstein and the CBPP. And Greenstein feels strongly about Boehner’s “inexorable” math. He lays out the math and goes on to say:
… This component of the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” bill strongly suggests that, especially in the face of an approaching election, House Republicans looking for entitlement cuts would heavily target means-tested programs for people of lesser means (and less political power).
In short, the Boehner plan would force policymakers to choose among cutting the incomes and health benefits of ordinary retirees, repealing the guts of health reform and leaving an estimated 34 million more Americans uninsured, and savaging the safety net for the poor. It would do so even as it shielded all tax breaks, including the many lucrative tax breaks for the wealthiest and most powerful individuals and corporations. …
Just hearing that reiterated by Greenstein and checking out his impeccable analysis, one has to conclude that there is a bitterness — a toxic anger — behind the GOP’s proposed policies. Those policies make no sense economically — can’t be justified on that score. They make no sense morally — far from it.
What remains makes the GOP look like an embittered, ruthless political party whose leaders and funders maim and kill for their own sick pleasure. The Breitviks of US politics.
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A report just in from the NYT says House Republicans won’t vote for Boehner’s plan.
Conservative Republicans on Tuesday balked at House leaders’ pleas to stop whining and back their plan to slash spending and increase the nation’s borrowing ability, throwing into doubt the GOP’s proposal to rescue the nation from an unprecedented government default.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is trying to round up the votes for his plan to cut spending about $1.2 billion and extend the debt ceiling for about six months, one of two rival plans amid the struggle between President Barack Obama and Congress to settle on an elusive compromise.
Washington and the nation are staring down an Aug. 2 deadline to raise the debt limit or face national default.
Flanked by conservative colleagues, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters he could not back the Boehner proposal and said it doesn’t have the votes to pass. In a two-step plan, Boehner is pressing for a vote on Wednesday and a second vote Thursday on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
“We think there are real problems with this plan,” said Jordan, who heads the Republican Study Group. He argued that the spending cuts are insufficient and expressed opposition to likely tax increases. ...NYT/AP
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Poll just in.
Cross posted from the blog Prairie Weather.
11 Responses to “Boehner’s Wool, Your Eyes”
Well he said it would be a Trillion over ten years, but in reality it’s only about 850 billion. Congressman Boehner has no idea what he is talking about. He puts on a good cry though.
Agreed, Allen:
Politics News Alert: Boehner plan dealt setback by CBO
July 26, 2011 6:44:03 PM
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House Speaker John Boehner’s debt-limit plan was dealt a potentially debilitating setback Tuesday when the Congressional Budget Office reported on the eve of the House vote that the measure would save only about $840 billion over the next decade — far less than the $1.2 trillion advertised.
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/ZTVJ68/18ZW2D/6ABQH2/F6DALW/M5ZOT/FW/h
More updates on Boehner’s “potentially debilitating setback”:
July 26, 2011 8:22:20 PM
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House Republicans have delayed a vote on their bill to lift the debt ceiling as they scrambled Tuesday night to rewrite portions of the measure to ensure that accompanying spending cuts were large enough, according to three senior GOP aides. Budget analysts said hours earlier the plan would only create $850 billion in savings as opposed to the sought-after $1.2 trillion. Originally scheduled for Wednesday, the vote could now happen Thursday.
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/TNGYL1/WL0ZOC/XBF5RH/2R0HT4/AGT3P/PJ/h
Greenstein is a laughable analyst. He ignores means testing as an option and never gives the relevant growth rates so allow me to help him.
Projected mandatory (or entitlement) spending from 2012 to 2021 according to the CBO assessment of the President’s budget is $27 trillion. $1.8 trillion assuming it all comes from these accounts is about 6.6% of the total spending in those accounts. To make that happen, we’d have to take the growth rate of entitlements from 5.2% each year for the decade to 4.5% each year over the same period.
Might as well declare the end of the world.
And this guy is what passes for “nonpartisan analysis and probity”
The only people who trust the CBPP are those who want someone to support their points of view, not people who actually do analysis.
Get real.
“Get real.”
You first.
Ah JS another critique without substance. Whatever shall I do?
Perhaps you would like to offer a substantive rebuttal?
CBPP — kind of like the AFL-CIO, you might say
HOW MUCH FURTHER ARE WE WILLING TO GO IN ORDER TO PLEASE THESE VERY SAME PEOPLE WHO DENY US EVEN THE RIGHT TO EXISTENCE(what is to you country without laws or lawless country in respect to your personal rights, but the one that in contrast to your denied basic human rights recognizes you extremely liable when payments are due) !!?
IS IT INDEPENDENCE THAT WE CELEBRATE OR DEPENDENCE (what are your credit card bills or alimony saying about it) !!? HOW IS YOUR DIABETES AND LOST MARRIAGES !!? FORECLOSURES AND JOB SEARCH !!? THAT IS THE QUESTION TO BE OR NOT TO BE !!!!!! IS IT LAND OF THE FREE OR STATE OF TERROR AGAINST OWN POPULATION !!? IT IS TIME TO LET THEM KNOW WHAT COLOR ARE THE STRIPES ON OUR STAR SPANGLED BANNER !!!
VISIT(google text if links don’t work) “DICTATOR OBAMA = STALIN = BUSH or USA = SOVIET UNION” http://avsecbostjan.blogspot.com/ or http://avsecbostjan.wordpress.com/ …TO LEARN WHO, HOW, AND WHY RUINED YOU…FROM 911 TO EXILED WHITE AMERICAN REFUGEES SEEKING ASYLUM RIGHT NOW !!! TIME TO DETERMINE WHOSE INDEPENDENCE/AMERICA, WE CELEBRATE TODAY(who want to erase us and denies us the right to exist) !!! IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW WHOM WE ADDRESS WITH “PRESIDENT”(STOP HUMILIATING YOURSELF) !!!!
Steve, most folks look up at the daytime sky (unless they live in a place like Seattle) and see what most of us refer to as the color blue. The fact that I choose not to spend time and energy talking about chemistry, optics, polarity, light, etc. doesn’t therefore mean the sky is green. A metaphor of course, but an apt one. It’s clear that you love to juggle numbers, but don’t you think it’s odd how your results always seem to come down in support of the same ideology? That in itself makes the needle on my crap detector start moving.
Very interesting JS. Help me understand in this particular case that’s so.
Is it, in your view, ideological to argue that $1.8 trillion in cuts in entitlements will not involve gutting the program because it’s a relatively small change in future growth? If so, why is that? Would it be equally ideological to make that argument about $1 trillion in cuts? How about $0.5 trillion? I’m just curious when it isn’t an ideological argument.
As to your thesis, perhaps you should apply it to Dr. Greenstein.
And the notion that any reductions in the rate of growth “destroy” or “gut” a program is a bit different than the notion that the sky is blue, at least to me.
But I sense it isn’t to you, confirming my point…you already know what you believe, fact be damned. That’s fine but it’s limiting, again, at least in my view.
To your point about ideology, let me give you an example. I went back and looked at a long series of tax rate data. Do you know what I learned?
Contrary to what I thought I knew, it turns out that tax rates have gone down pretty substantially on (depending on how you count), the top 0.1 to 1.0 percent of taxpayers versus a 1970 baseline. That was news to me because previously I had only looked at CBO data back to 1979. That in turn caused me to adjust my position on things like increasing the cap gains tax rate.
Now the same analysis suggested that tax rates have also gone down quite substantially for the bottom 80 percent of taxpayers which I had already known but people like you deny.
For those of your inclination, such a change would never happen and mores the pity imo.
Best to you.
Best to you as well Steve. I enjoyed seeing you dance around my question.