gbaji wrote:
Heck. They originally set their sights on just a measly 100B in cuts because they figured that was as much as they could get passed. They then compromised that down to just 61B.
Umm... no. They never intended to cut a real $100B. They told the Tea Partiers that it would be $100B, then Ryan said it'd only have to be $85B because it the budget wasn't as large as they had thought. Then pro-rated that to $50B because it wasn't a full year's budget. Then
Ryan finally decided that $32B counted as $100B worth of cuts when you work the math the right way.
Mind you, all of this was BEFORE they released any sort of budget plan to "compromise" on. This was purely because they realized that they could never hold up the promises they made during the election. I posted about this back in February.
On Jan 31, 2011, I wrote:
The $100 billion the GOP promised to cut out of the budget has already been reduced to $50 billion. First they said the 2011 budget wasn't as large as they first though so they only need to cut $85bil. But since it'll be a short budget year, they can pro-rate much of that and cut only $50bil. So there ya go -- $100bil in cuts for the low price of only $50bil removed from the budget.
On Feb 2, 2011, I wrote:
Whoops, never mind. Ryan released his plan and now he's only cutting $32bil.
What happened then is that the Tea Partiers got into an uproar over this amount of cuts and forced Ryan & Boehner into the uncomfortable position of having to cut far, far more than they ever planned or or thought they had any chance of passing. Then they let it get cluttered with policy riders that had nothing to do with saving money (since they only mention allocation) but everything to do with using the budget to push an agenda. Now the GOP House leadership
is panicking because they know they'll never get the cuts the Tea Party is demanding and they fear they're going to get blamed for the shutdown (polls put it at about a 9-14 point spread in favor of blaming the GOP over Obama).
Who told you that this was the result of some "compromise" and why did you believe them without bothering to look up any of the facts?
Heh... reading along, apparently even the GOP Senate was laughing at Cantor and his ridiculous understanding of Congress.
The Hill wrote:
The plan was quickly derided by both Democrats and Senate Republicans, however, who responded by offering a civics lesson to their House colleagues.
“My reaction to that is ultimately the whole body including the executive branch has to sign on here or we're just whistling in the wind,†Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) said.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said: “To be the law of the land, a bill has to pass the Senate and be signed by the president.â€
Hours after the Cantor announcement, a House GOP Appropriations subcommittee chairman, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), said he hadn’t heard about it. Told of the plan, he laughed and said: “If we can do that, can’t we just deem the budget balanced?â€
Edited, Mar 30th 2011 6:18pm by Jophiel