The $100 Billion Question, Part 2

Me, early last week on Orange Julius's promise to cut $100 billion from the budget without touching defense, Medicare, or Social Security:

My guess is going to be those spending cuts are going to be a lot less than $100 billion, especially for anybody with 2012 aspirations.  Of course, that would explain why most of your 2012 GOP prospective candidates are out of office right now, but all the GOP House will be facing voters again in two years as well.

The NY Times, today:

Many people knowledgeable about the federal budget said House Republicans could not keep their campaign promise to cut $100 billion from domestic spending in a single year. Now it appears that Republicans agree.


As they prepare to take power on Wednesday, Republican leaders are scaling back that number by as much as half, aides say, because the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, will be nearly half over before spending cuts could become law. 

 Called it.

While House Republicans were never expected to succeed in enacting cuts of that scale, given opposition in the Senate from the Democratic majority and some Republicans, and from President Obama, a House vote would put potentially vulnerable Republican lawmakers on record supporting deep reductions of up to 30 percent in education, research, law enforcement, transportation and more.

Now aides say that the $100 billion figure was hypothetical, and that the objective is to get annual spending for programs other than those for the military, veterans and domestic security back to the levels of 2008, before Democrats approved stimulus spending to end the recession.

Yet “A Pledge to America,” the manifesto House Republicans published last September, included the promise, “We will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone.”

Republican leaders have repeatedly invoked the number. On Tuesday the Web site for Representative John A. Boehner, the incoming House speaker, included a link to his national radio address on the Saturday before the midterm elections, in which he said, “We’re ready to cut spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving roughly $100 billion almost immediately.”


Representative Paul D. Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who will become chairman of the House Budget Committee, said in December that the goal was to cut “a good $100 billion.” At issue is so-called discretionary domestic spending, which is about one-sixth of the federal budget and does not include the more expensive and fast-growing entitlement programs like Medicare.

On Tuesday, aides to Mr. Ryan and Mr. Boehner blamed Democrats’ failure to pass the regular appropriations bills for fiscal year 2011 for forcing Republicans to reduce their goal to perhaps $50 billion to $60 billion. 

Those are still going to be nasty cuts.  But as I predicted, House Republicans aren't going to commit political suicide right off the bat and make massive cuts to law enforcement, public safety and education.

Well, actually, if they still plan to cut $50-$60 billion from schools, police, and firefighters then maybe they are simply planning to kill themselves less slowly.

Hey Tea Party, Orange Julius lied to you again.  Surprise!  How do ya feel?   Bonus wingnuttery from Patterico on that subject:

“Depressing” doesn’t begin to cover it. There really aren’t words for how absolutely infuriating this is. More and more, the temptation to leave the keyboard one is calmly typing on, and simply pound the fucking wall in frustration and dream of an armed insurrection . . . becomes something understandable rather than something we all know we should calmly denounce.

 "Dream of an armed insurrection".  He's mad that Social Security and Medicare aren't being cut...enough to pause just long enough over the violence card, longingly, and consider "what if".  Nice.  Release the Kraken, indeed.