Thread: We The Stupid: There are no spending cuts in this plan

There are no spending cuts in this plan. It is all accounting fraud. Saying that you are not going to spend money in Afghanistan ten years from now is not spending cuts.

August 1, 2011

We The Stupid

Ann Barnhardt
57 comments

I stand here in abject stupefaction. The so-called "right" or "Tea Party" in this republic is being so thoroughly rolled and defeated that I am struggling to come up with an adequate violent submission metaphor that does not involve prison rape . . . and they honesty think that they're "winning." Really? You call this winning?

•- Obama gets over $2 Trillion to spend before the 2012 election
•- There are no real spending cuts
•- There is a massive tax increase effective January 1, 2013

Obama is going to be handed something in excess of $2 Trillion -- and he has made it perfectly clear that he will spend every penny of it before the November 2012 election. That's why he kept saying, " . . . so we don't have to do this again", meaning raise the debt ceiling again. The debt ceiling would only need to be raised if all of the money had been spent. Therefore, he has stated very clearly that he will spend every penny of any debt ceiling increase. He is going to burn through $2 Trillion-plus in the next sixteen months. This was the Obama regime's plan from day one. Geithner appeared before Congress in early May and told them this in no uncertain terms. This outcome has been a known quantity all along.

There are no spending cuts in this plan. It is all accounting fraud. Saying that you are not going to spend money in Afghanistan ten years from now is not spending cuts. Even if you accept the $1 Trillion in cuts over ten years propaganda, that is only $100 Billion per year, which is essentially meaningless relative to the size of the problem. Furthermore, even a miniscule uptick in interest rates, which given the massive debasement of our currency is now a mathematical certainty, will completely consume that $100 Billion per year. It's all a joke.

Back to the $2 Trillion that Obama is being handed. I honestly think that most people in this country have no understanding of simple counting numbers. Do you not understand how much a trillion is? Where do you think this money is going to come from -- who has two trillion dollars to loan us? China? Nope. Not even close. China's entire GDP is only $6 Trillion. Do you honestly think that China is going to loan us one third of their total annual economic production? China was a huge creditor to us back when $100 Billion was considered a staggeringly large amount of money - which was four years ago. Now $100 Billion is literally a rounding error. Do you realize that there are only a handful of nations of this planet that even have a GDP in excess of $2 Trillion? If these countries loaned us every penny of their GDP, it wouldn't even be $2 Trillion:

Canada ($1.57 T)
India ($1.54 T)
Russia ($1.46 T)

Are you starting to understand the scope of what we are talking about now? Obama is going to embezzle considerably more than the entire economic output of Canada, India or Russia to his cronies before the 2012 election -- and that is just counting this round of spending. This doesn't include the other $5 Trillion he has already burned through since 2009.

China is not going to lend us this money because they simply don't have anything close to that much money to lend. This $2 Trillion is going to come from the Federal Reserve. Where is the Federal Reserve going to get $2 Trillion? They are going to print it out of thin air. We are in the midst of the largest currency debasement ever seen in human history. There is only one result that can come of currency debasement: hyperinflation and total economic and societal collapse.

Have you also forgotten the so-called "Bush tax cuts"? Yeah. Those rates are going to expire on January 1, 2013. Obama will presumably still be occupying the Oval Office at that time assuming that he is not forcibly removed or that the Republic is still intact at that time. Taxes will increase significantly at that point, and the Congressional Budget Office has scored everything put before them given the fact of the massive tax increases on 1/1/2013. Do you understand that? When these Republicans and even these so-called "Tea Party Freshmen" tell you that there are no tax hikes in their "plan," they are consciously, willfully, knowingly lying to you through their teeth.

Finally, I do not understand how it can possibly be that conservative writers are still addressing Obama as if he is actually trying to help the economy, but his well-intentioned policies are failing.

Obama is the enemy. Obama is a Marxist-Communist usurper and puppet front for a cabal of Marxist-Communists who are actively trying to destroy the United States of America. Everything they have done, are doing, and will do has the single goal of collapsing and destroying the U.S. economy, military, constitutional government and culture. What part of "Marxist Revolution" do you not understand?

The Obama regime is not a failure. The Obama regime is not incompetent. The Obama regime has achieved more in two and a half years than anyone could have possibly foreseen. It has debased the currency by 50% of the GDP and guaranteed that our economy will collapse. It has looted the Treasury for more than the size of a top-ten economy and embezzled that wealth into the hands of their fellow Marxists in preparation for the final collapse of the United States. It has ground the economy of the United States to a screeching halt. It has destabilized the entire Muslim world and ensured that there will be a nuclear war centered around Israel within the decade.

The Obama regime has no interest whatsoever in "stimulus" or "getting folks back to work." How can you not understand this? How can we possibly win this war if we refuse to come to terms with the fact that we are in fact fighting a war.

God save the United States of America, because the people are far too stupid to do it themselves.

Ann Barnhardt is a livestock and grain commodity broker and marketing consultant, American patriot, traditional Catholic, and unwitting counter-revolutionary blogger. She can be reached through her business at www.barnhardt.biz.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... tupid.html

Immigration Enforcement is key to getting entitlement cuts.

By "cutting" $917 B from the CBO's baseline 10-year budget, spending will go up 4.4% per year on average instead of 4.6% per year

Hostage-taking, Butchering, Lunacy

Randall Hoven
16 comments

The new debt deal "would cut & cap discretionary spending immediately, saving $917B over 10 years." House Speaker John Boehner's PowerPoint slides. http://www.speaker.gov/UploadedFiles/3- ... oehner.pdf

"[A] nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists... many are counting on future Congresses to undo its arbitrary butchering... a political environment laced with lunacy." The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opini ... yt&emc=rss

This is your federal budget.



Source: Congressional Budget Office, March 2011 baseline. Vertical axis is billions of dollars. http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12130/0 ... Budget.pdf

This is your federal budget on "cuts."



Source: CBO March 2011 baseline, with 2% cut in each year after 2011.

In case you find it difficult to see the difference, here are both budgets, cut and un-cut, on one chart.



Total spending, 2012-21, in baseline: $45.769 trillion.

Total spending, 2012-21, with "cuts": $44.854 trillion.

Spending increase, 2011 to 2021, in baseline: 56.5% (4.6% per year, average).

Spending increase, 2011 to 2021, with "cuts": 53.4% (4.4% per year, average).

Incidentally, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the "stimulus") will cost $814 B over 2009-2019, according to the CBO. The first $572 B of that came in just its first two years: 2009 and 2010. The above debt deal, assuming "cuts" are evenly spread over the next decade, will take seven years to simply undo two years of "stimulus" and a full decade to undo all of the "stimulus".

To summarize, by "cutting" $917 B from the CBO's baseline 10-year budget, spending will go up 4.4% per year on average instead of 4.6% per year, and will essentially undo about three years worth of "stimulus." That's what all the fuss was about.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... unacy.html

Why does an 'immediate' cut take 10 years?

By Bobby Eberle
August 1, 2011 7:13 am

They worked throughout the night. They worked all weekend long. They didn't golf. They didn't socialize. Instead, our legislators in Washington raced against the August 2 deadline in order to come up with a deal that would allow America to borrow more money to pay its bills. So what are we left with? If the devil is in the details, this is a hell of a mess.

As Fox News reports, Obama, along with Democrats and Republicans from both chambers of Congress have come up with a tentative deal. Monday will be the day that the deal is pitched to the rank and file members... and the "sell job" will begin.

According to the president, the deal means an immediate cut of $1 trillion in government spending over a 10-year period accompanied by a $900 billion increase in the debt ceiling. That will be followed by the creation of the committee to come up with additional cuts worth at least $1.5 trillion. The debt ceiling will be raised by $1.5 trillion if the committee recommendations are approved by the end of the year.

"Despite what some Republicans have argued, I believe that we have to ask the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share by giving up tax breaks and special deductions. Despite what some in my own party have argued, I believe that we need to make some modest adjustments to programs like Medicare to ensure that they're still around for future generations. That's why the second part of this agreement is so important," Obama said from the White House briefing room.

Here we go again. The old "fair share" line. Nobody can define what that means, but that doesn't ever stop Obama and the Democrats from using it. In addition, it's crazy to describe a series of cuts over a 10-year period as immediate. How in the world can it be immediate if it takes 10 years?

Sidenote: Any time you see something like that, you should think "political cowardness." The cuts may seem large in total, but look at the details and see what is actually being cut NOW. Much will be left to later years when politicians hope that someone else will have to make the tough calls. Our budget deficit problem is occurring NOW. Our debt problem is occurring NOW. Yet our "immediate" solution kicks in over 10 years? Crazy.

House Speaker John Boehner put together a PowerPoint presentation http://www.gopusa.com/media/pdf/debt_framework.pdf to describe the deal. Here are some of the details:

-- The "framework" of the deal has three main features:

• cuts government spending more than it increases the debt limit
• implements spending caps to restrain future spending
• advances the cause of a Balanced Budget Amendment

-- No Tax Hikes

-- Cuts Exceed the Debt Hike

• Same as House-passed bill, framework includes spending cuts that exceed the amount of the increased debt authority granted to POTUS.
• Would cut & cap discretionary spending immediately, saving $917B over 10 years (certified by CBO) & raise the debt ceiling by less - $900B - to approximately February
• Before debt ceiling can be raised, Congress and the president must enact spending cuts of a larger amount first.

-- Caps to Control Future spending

• As in House-passed bill, framework imposes spending caps that would set clear limits on future spending & serve as barrier against gov't expansion while economy grows.
• Failure to remain below these caps triggers automatic across-the-board cuts ("sequestration"). Same mechanism used in 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.

-- Balanced Budget Amendment

• Same as House-passed bill, framework requires both House & Senate to vote on a BBA after Oct. 1, 2011 but before the end of year
• Similar to House-passed bill, framework authorizes POTUS to request second tranche of debt limit increase of $1.5T if:
• Joint Committee cuts spending by greater amount than the requested debt limit hike, OR
• A Balanced Budget Amendment is sent to the states
• Creates incentive for previous opponents of a BBA to now support it

-- Entitlement Reforms and Savings

• Same as House-passed bill, framework creates a 12-member Joint Committee required to report legislation by November 23, 2011 that would produce a proposal to reduce the deficit by at least $1.5T over 10 years.
•Each chamber would consider Joint Committee proposal on an up-or-down basis without any amendments by December 23, 2011.
• If Joint Committee's proposal is enacted OR if a Balanced Budget Amendment is sent to the states, POTUS would be authorized to request a debt limit increase of $1.5T.
• Sets up a new sequestration process to cut spending across-the-board - and ensure that any debt limit increase is met with greater spending cuts - IF Joint Committee fails to achieve at least $1.2T in deficit reduction.
• If this happens, POTUS may request up to $1.2T for a debt limit increase, and if granted, then across-the-board spending cuts would result that would equal the difference between $1.2T and the deficit reduction enacted as a result of Joint Committee.
• Across-the-board spending cuts would apply to FYs 2013-2021, and apply to both mandatory & discretionary programs.
• Total reductions would be equally split between defense and non-defense programs. Across-the-board cuts would also apply to Medicare. Other programs, including Social Security, Medicaid, veterans, and civil & military pay, would be exempt.
• Sequestration process is designed to guarantee that Congress acts on the Joint Committee's legislation to cut spending.

So what do you think?

There was no doubt in my mind that some kind of deal would be reached. After all, what was the goal? The goal was to raise the debt ceiling in order to avoid America defaulting on loan payments. Now... in order to achieve that goal, legislators needed to talk about things like cuts and caps and balanced budgets. However, because those items were just negotiating tools and not actual goals, you can count on Washington having to go through all this again when we hit the next debt limit.

http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/2011/08/0 ... bscriber=1