February 20, 2011

Let me read you a news story about some of the proposed budget cuts. Republicans are proposing cuts in youth training and education programs, foreign aid, assistance to homeless youth, federal subsidies to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Head Start, energy assistance for the needy to pay their fuel bills. That’s a list from 1995. So Republicans now are proposing a very similar list of cuts that go after the programs that they have always targeted, things that conservative voters don’t like very much, that liberal voters do. So in that sense there is Republican unity.

Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist, appearing recently on NPR’s “Tell Me More.”

The House tea party caucus put its dominance over Speaker John Boehner on display last week when it pushed him and his hapless leadership team to the edge of the political ledge on the issue of budget cuts.

Let them eat cake Here’s the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis on Friday of the ramifications of the tea party cuts were they to be enacted:

After the House Appropriations Committee detailed $74 billion in cuts last Wednesday, a number of conservative members demanded $26 billion in additional cuts to make good on the “Pledge to America,” bringing the total level of cuts relative to President Obama’s FY 2011 budget request to $100 billion. A full $100 billion cut to discretionary spending would likely result in job losses on the order of 994,000, using OMB’s GDP projections (CBO’s projections are based on current law) and assuming a fiscal multiplier of 1.5.

The new GOP budget proposes cutting non-security discretionary spending by $81 billion relative to the president’s $478 billion request for 2011. Non-security discretionary cuts of this magnitude would likely result in job losses of just over 800,000. (2/15/2011)

But over the weekend, looking at the bill as passed, the Associated Press reported that it called for $60 billion in cuts, which, if so, would represent a significant defeat for the tea party caucus. Even at that level, the cuts will likely produce direct job losses of 650,000 in government layoffs, which would likely trigger to another 325,000 layoffs, mostly in the retail and service sectors — nearly 1 million jobs altogether — according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress.

[…]

Day: February 20, 2011

SSDD: Republicans Proposed Same Cuts in 1995

Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist, appearing recently on NPR’s “Tell Me More.”

The Tea Party’s Job-Killing Budget Bill

Poetic Justice

Verbatim

“One woman at a rally in New Jersey told me last week that she was ‘nauseously optimistic.’ That may capture a lot of people’s last-minute jitters.”

— Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), quoted by Axios, on what Democrats feel ahead of the midterm elections.

“I think Congress made a mistake not protesting turning the Rose Garden into what looks like the entrance to Liberace’s bathroom.”

— Former President Bill Clinton, quoted by The Wrap.

“Boy, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. It feels like a real desperation play to me, because it has got zero basis in the law.”

— Republican election law expert Ben Ginsberg, quoted by Politico, on the Trump administration’s effort to invalidate Alaska’s election results.

Numerati

3,824

$1.4 billion

-35 points

31%

63% to 38%

KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”