When a cut is not a cut

To my shock and dismay, the current debt compromise that even on its surface doesn't touch the budget deficit, is a total sham. Turns out the budget cuts are not for current expenditures, but on projected deficit increases. As the article explains, it's the same thing as deciding to buy a Mercedes instead of a Lamborghini, and calling the difference in price spent a "cut". So they agreed to continue the spending, they just won't increase the spending as much as they agreed. In our Neo-Orwellian government, that is what a "cut" is.

And this is what all the delay and theater has been all about: how to pass a bill that looks like it accomplishes one thing, while actually continuing the status quo unchallenged. And even though someone at The Hill was smart enough to call them out on it, as will, I imagine, plenty of other journalists and publications, Boobus will be too distracted by the resuscitated NFL season or other trivialities to really care. This is all beyond their comprehension anyway...smarter, more important people are handling this crisis. In the end, they're looking out for our best interests and our best interests will ultimately be served. These people might as well be dead.

The Hill -

One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase.

No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the "cuts" being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family "saving" $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people.

The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith and credit of the United States is being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever, in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family's income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.

In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of "cuts" that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to "cut". It would only take us 5 years to "cut" $1 trillion, in Washington math, just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.