Wednesday's Washington Post posted an analysis of the recently passed budget deal to fund the remainder of 2011. Originally, the Republicans claimed that the deal would cut spending by $38 billion, a little more than one third of the budget cuts promised. That figure has rapidly decreased since the deal was passed.
Ed Morrissey posted a similar analysis at Hot Air yesterday. I admit that I do not understand the logic of the process by which Washington spends money, but I think Mr. Morrissey's analysis is fairly understandable. He cites an article at Politico which states:
"[W]hen CBO estimated the initial House bill in February, it projected that the $61.3 billion in nonemergency appropriations cuts would result in $9.2 billion in outlay reductions by Sept. 30 when measured against comparable outlay estimates two months earlier, on Dec. 20.
"By comparison, the precise appropriations cut now, $37.7 billion, translates into a vastly smaller sum, $352 million, using the same standard."
This is quite a change from $38 billion. The Washington Post points out:
"When war funding is factored in the legislation would actually increase total federal outlays by $3.3 billion relative to current levels."
This is definitely not moving in the right direction. The upcoming budget battles will be on raising the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget. In the case of the debt ceiling, there will be dire predictions of what will happen if the Republicans do not go along with the President's ideas. I think it's time for dire consequences. If we don't stop the runaway spending now, we will never stop it.
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