Monday, December 30, 2013

Kumbaya

I promised I'd figure out the skunk in the woodpile of the Ryan-Murray agreement, and I have: The keyword is Discretionary.
They have capped Discretionary spending, but not touched the "Mandatory"
spending: the entitlements. Furthermore, while they may have "capped" expenses, they "capped" them at a higher level than ever before!
Check it out, the references are at the bottom, but here is the BLUF (divided by
eight zeros to put it in terms that humans can understand).
It is as if your home budget were this:
Item 2012 2013 2014
Total spending: $35,380 $34,500 $38,000
Total Revenue: $26,270 $29,020 $30,300
Deficit: $10,890 $5,480 $7,700
Total Debt: $155,660 $170,700 $178,800
You are spending 25% more than you earn.
And you are already $170K in debt.
I suppose it's a good thing that the deficit is about half of last year's, but watch out for the man behind the curtain. We need to dig a lot deeper to find out how they worked that rabbit's foot.
But if it is real then this is indeed a step in the right direction.
But by no means a solution.This deal does let them pretend that they are playing nice, for the Main Stream Media and people who can neither think, nor read, nor calculate but just "feel".
It is definitely a "feel good" solution.
Kumbaya.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budget
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_United_States_federal_budget
http://nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/