The "$38 Billion Spending Cut" is actually a spending INCREASE

[jmowreader]

And the GOP is responsible for it all.

How it works: When the Bush tax cuts were getting ready to sunset, the Republicans kicked and screamed until they got the two top brackets' tax cuts extended. This created a fairly large hit to the economy--between $770 billion over 10 years ($77 billion per year) and $830 billion ($83 billion per year). For ease of discussion we'll use the lowest figure.

Subtract the $38 billion in cuts the GOP won on Friday from the $77 billion they screwed the government out of in December, and you're looking at a de facto $39 billion spending increase.

If Michele Bachmann had received her prized $100 billion cut, the reality is thanks to the GOP's spending on tax cuts you're only looking at $23 billion in potential deficit reduction.

If the teabaggers who scream about "spending cuts" and "tax cuts" realized a tax cut is actually a spending increase, would they be so quick to call for them?

[al_liberal]

1. Whatever your smoking, I'd like some of it. n/t

[Tx4obama]

2. The deal cuts spending by $78.5 billion

Excerpt:
Details of the Bipartisan Budget Deal

SNIP

The deal cuts spending by $78.5 billion from the President’s FY 2011 Budget request -- the largest annual spending cut in our history.

Full article here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/09/details-bipartisan-budget-deal

[taught_me_patience]

3. 3% of just the deficit

a mere pittance.

[jmowreader]

7. They better tell the media, then...

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-04-09/u-s-congress-strikes-spending-cut-deal-to-avert-shutdown.html ... "about $38 billion"

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20110410/OPINION01/304089865 ... "about $38.5 billion"

I think the $78 billion is for the total cuts in both the continuing resolution and the larger bill that is to be debated this week, not the CR alone--the CR is $38.5 billion, thereabouts.

[RC]

4. The T-baggers are not capable of such complicated thinking about the budget as conceiving tax cuts

have the same affect as spending increases.
One obviously has nothing to do with the other. One, tax cuts, create jobs and the other forces lazy liberals to get those jobs and support themselves. See how simple that really is?:sarcasm:

[MadHound]

5. Wow, that is one of the most complicated, insane rationalizations,

Trying to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat I've seen here all day.

[jmowreader]

8. Not really...

Dude, we got fucked. Everyone outside Washington knows we got fucked.

The Teahadis got screwed because they didn't get the $100 billion in cuts they wanted--but so long as they refuse to entertain the notion of cutting defense spending, they won't get that size of a cut. (Lurking teabaggers, here's a little hint: ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would cut $100 billion out of the budget with one stroke of a pen.)

The Talibornagain got screwed because they were betting the farm on defunding Planned Parenthood, which isn't going to happen.

We got screwed because a lot of really essential programs are being slashed or eliminated.

My point, however, is very simple: The Republicans demanded at the end of 2010 that $77 billion be removed from the budget through the extension of the Bush tax cuts on high-margin taxpayers. There is absolutely no difference, as far as the budget is concerned, between the Democrats spending $77 billion on a social program or an infrastructure program and the Republicans spending $77 billion on reducing taxes for people with more than $250,000 in taxable income. The money is gone. It can't be used for another program or for deficit reduction. So...calling a tax cut a spending program is accurate.

[applegrove]

6. Brilliant!