Budget Blame Game From NYT

Opinion/Editorial

 

 

  They still don't get it and they never ever will these self righteous idiots at the New York Times especially their holier than thou editorial board on how to build an economy or even how to recover from a bad economy which of course the people with their political warped views helped to cause.
  This mornings lead OPED shows this to be true "Extreme Budget Cuts of 2014" well we will see what extreme is to the NYT I have no doubt that we already know.
  It begins "The most shameful achievement of the House Republican majority has been the elimination of $1.5 trillion in discretionary spending through 2022, which has already held back the economy from substantial growth and done real damage to people and communities that depend on government dollars. The widespread pain caused by this year’s sequester is the best-known aspect of these cuts, but caps that will continue to limit virtually every program for nine more years will also be extremely harmful.Republicans, though, still aren’t satisfied, and are continuing their campaign to radically reshape Washington’s relationship to the country. The 2014 spending bills now emerging from the House Appropriations Committee are worse than in any previous year and would make some programs and departments unrecognizable."
  The NYT still buys into the BS about how Government $pending spurs the economy. To quote the NYT "The 2014 spending bills now emerging from the House Appropriations Committee are worse than in any previous year and would make some programs and departments unrecognizable." It would be unrecognizable because it would cut Government spending this is the correct way to go.
  More waste of time "The spending limits imposed by Republicans in the Budget Control Act of 2011 will be different in the upcoming fiscal year. The arbitrary, across-the-board cuts of the sequester will come to an end for most discretionary spending (the kind that has to be renewed each year), but the severe overall limits on each department’s budget will get worse as total discretionary spending declines by 2 percent. The difference in 2014 is that lawmakers can reallocate money within departments as they see fit, within the limits, and won’t be confined by the sequester rules.

House Republicans, of course, have decided to exceed the caps for their favorite programs. They want to give the Pentagon a 5.4 percent increase — $26 billion it doesn’t need — along with a 3.3 percent raise to Homeland Security. To pay for that, and still shrink the budget, they are demanding severe cuts from spending bills for which they have little use: nearly 19 percent out of the labor, health and education bill; 15 percent from the financial services oversight bill; 14 percent from the interior and environment bill; and 11 percent from the energy and water bill.

Those percentages, just to be clear, represent cuts below this year’s already ruinous sequester levels. The effect is visible in several of the bills that have emerged from the Appropriations Committee:

TRANSPORTATION AND HUD The overall level is cut by 9 percent, or $4.4 billion, below the 2013 sequester. That means Community Development Block Grants are cut by 45 percent to $1.6 billion, well below the $2.7 billion put in place when President Gerald Ford created the program in 1974. Amtrak would be cut by a third, as would the HOME Investment program, which creates affordable housing.

ENERGY AND WATER Spending on renewable energy programs would be cut nearly in half to $1 billion. But somehow an extra $450 million was found for further development of coal, natural gas, oil and other fossil fuels.

AGRICULTURE The bill cuts $120 million needed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to enforce the Dodd-Frank financial oversight law.

Even more severe cuts are likely when the environment and education bills are released in the coming weeks.The Senate, though, has taken a very different approach. Rather than perpetuate the unnecessary austerity of the spending caps, the Senate budget would raise an additional $1 trillion by eliminating various tax breaks for the rich and for corporations, while still cutting an equal amount of spending in areas that are not vital. But Republicans in both chambers have ignored all entreaties from the White House and the Senate to sit down and negotiate.       

The White House, urging compromise, has threatened to veto any Republican spending bill outside of a negotiated budget agreement that increases vital investments. The House, apparently, would rather drag the country through yet another budget showdown.

  I think the NYT has discretionary spending confused with too much Government spending but wait they don't understand the fact of too much Government or too much Government $pending.