Obama's Sequester Math: $300 Billion In New Revenues Called 'Spending Cuts'
Posted 02/28/2013 07:01 PM ET
Budget: When President Obama put out his "balanced" plan to avoid the automatic sequester cuts, no one noticed. Which is probably just as well for Obama, given how embarrassingly unbalanced it is.
Last week, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote about how Obama "hasn't actually come up with a proposal to avert sequestration, let alone one that is politically plausible."
Turns out, Obama did have one, although Brooks can be excused for not knowing it, since the administration hasn't exactly been promoting this so-called plan.
That, too, is understandable, since it isn't a plan at all, just a list of numbers with little to back them up.
There are no details, for example, about the $200 billion in cuts to defense and domestic discretionary programs, other than that Obama wants them split evenly.
And while he offers $400 billion in "health savings," 30% are lumped in a bucket labeled "other."
Worse, Obama's "balanced" plan actually counts hundreds of billions of new revenues from taxes, fees and rebates as "spending reductions." Examples:
• His plan to "strengthen" unemployment insurance is labeled as a cut, but it's really a $50 billion tax hike.
• The $35 billion from the federal worker retirement programs involves boosting worker contributions.
• Most of the $35 billion in Medicare savings comes from charging wealthy seniors more.
• The $140 billion in "reduced payments to drug companies" are in fact rebates Obama wants drugmakers to pay Uncle Sam for selling drugs to poor seniors.
• Then there's the $45 billion in spectrum fees and asset sales that Obama lists as spending reductions.
Viewed correctly, it turns out that more than $300 billion — about a third — of Obama's proposed "spending cuts" are actually revenue increases.
As a result, instead of $1.2 trillion in spending cuts called for by the sequester over the next decade, Obama would add more than $1 trillion in revenues, while cutting outlays only about $600 billion. And much of those aren't real cuts, but tiny reductions in projected spending growth over the next decade.
And in the end, his plan, such as it is, will do nothing to forestall the nation's oncoming debt crisis.
After four years, Obama's unseriousness as a president continues to surprise us.
they all do this bullsh!t! It's just common practice!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
In an interview with Ryan Lizza, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) confirmed that he and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) talked Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) out of accepting a “Grand Bargain” with President Obama. It was this rejection that led to the sequester.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
My question was imprecise; there were actually two sets of discussions, which I lumped together. There was a meeting on July 20th, with just Cantor, Paul Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy, the House Majority Whip, at which the three men discussed their objections to the White House asking for $1.2 trillion in revenue rather than $800 billion, and their concern that Boehner might go along with such a plan. And on the following day, July 21st, Obama formally proposed a deal to Boehner that included the $1.2 trillion in new revenue that so concerned Boehner’s three Republican colleagues. Boehner then had the crucial conversation with Cantor in which he explained the details of the proposal.
it's obvious that one needs to be INSANE to be a government representative. dem or rep are not the qualifications any more.....YOU MUST BE INSANE!!!!! ...and the folks who live in the asylum keep voting in the insane!!!!
Quoted Text
Mayor Bloomberg: Don’t Panic About the Sequester By Colin Campbell 10:08am
“We are spending money we don’t have,” Mr. Bloomberg explained. “It’s not like your household. In your household, people are saying, ‘Oh, you can’t spend money you don’t have.’ That is true for your household because nobody is going to lend you an infinite amount of money. When it comes to the United States federal government, people do seem willing to lend us an infinite amount of money. … Our debt is so big and so many people own it that it’s preposterous to think that they would stop selling us more. It’s the old story: If you owe the bank $50,000, you got a problem. If you owe the bank $50 million, they got a problem. And that’s a problem for the lenders. They can’t stop lending us more money.”
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Sequester spin: Obama’s false claim of Capitol janitors receiving ‘a pay cut’ Posted by Glenn Kessler at 03:27 PM ET, 03/01/2013
“Starting tomorrow everybody here, all the folks who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol. Now that Congress has left, somebody’s going to be vacuuming and cleaning those floors and throwing out the garbage. They’re going to have less pay. The janitors, the security guards, they just got a pay cut, and they’ve got to figure out how to manage that. That’s real.” — President Obama, news conference, March 1, 2013
This column has been updated with a new Pinocchio rating This was a pretty evocative image the president offered at his news conference Friday on the sequester — janitors sweeping the empty halls of the Capitol, laboring at less pay.
When we first heard his remarks, we thought he was perhaps overstating matters. Even at federal agencies that have planned furloughs, none are expected to begin on Saturday; such actions are weeks away at many federal agencies. But that’s perhaps a minor rhetorical overreach. But then our colleague Ed O’Keefe obtained the sequester plan released by the Architect for the Capitol, which employs Capitol Hill janitors on the House side. (The Sergeant at Arms employs the janitorial staff on the Senate side.) UPDATE: Obama’s remarks also prompted a warning from AOC officials that his comments were “not true.” The Facts We have embedded an image of the first AOC document below. Stephen T. Ayers, the architect of the Capitol, listed a number of steps being taken to reduce expenses, including limiting new hiring and postponing repairs. This line jumped out at us: “We do not anticipate furloughs for AOC employees as a result of Sequestration.”..........................>>>>.................>>>>..................http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....af4ebe42df_blog.html
Nothing surprising here -- Obama is a liar and has been a liar since day #1 ... just like the all of his extremist liberal buddies in Congress.
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
Nothing surprising here -- Obama is a liar and has been a liar since day #1 ... just like the all of his extremist liberal buddies in Congress.
Just like your extreme liberal dem buddies, creating a socialist city and county of Schenectady
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
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