Pres Obama's plan, $4TRILLION deficit reduction

[Luddly Neddite]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/deficit_reduction_table_bucketed_r8.pdf

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David Brooks, Obama Plan Birther [Updated] -- Daily Intelligencer

... Whatever you think about the substantive merits of Obama’s plan, it does exist. Obama has a proposal to replace sequestration with long-term deficit reduction that includes a mix of entitlement spending cuts and higher revenue. He talks about it all the time. ... Yesterday the administration reiterated that it continues to stand behind this offer...

 

[OriginalShroom]

Uhmmm

That's not a plan.

Not one that can be scored by the CBO or even talked about in a serious fashion.

It's a list of things he wants to do, with nothing there as to exactly how he is going to get it done.

In other words.. It's bullshit.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/deficit_reduction_table_bucketed_r8.pdf

Even split between defense and nondefense discretionary savings $200
• Non-defense discretionary spending $100
• Defense discretionary spending $100
Health savings – could be achieved by: $400
• Reduce payments to drug companies $140
• Reduce hospital payments such as reimbursement for patients who don’t pay $30
• Encourage efficient care after a hospital stay $50
• Encourage beneficiaries to seek high value health care and ask the most fortunate to
pay more $35
• Medicaid, Pay-for-Delay, IPAB, program integrity $25
• Other health savings $120
Non-health Mandatory Savings – could be achieved by: $200
• Eliminate certain subsidies for agriculture $30
• Reform Federal retirement programs $35
• Reform postal service and TSA passenger security fees $40
• Strengthen solvency of UI trust fund $50
• Other savings including Spectrum Fees, Sales of Excess Property, & Program
Integrity $45
Spending Savings from Superlative CPI with protections for vulnerable $130
Subtotal, Total New Spending Reductions $930 + $200 interest
Revenue
Limit tax deductions to 28% for the wealthiest and close other loopholes $580 billion (+$100 billion
from CPI change)
Temporary Growth Measures
Immediate investments in infrastructure -$50
TOTAL DEFICIT REDUCTION
Deficit Reduction to Date More than $2,500
New Deficit Reduction $1,800
Total Deficit Reduction More than $4,300

 

[OriginalShroom]

ROFLMAO

I finished reading the article after making the above post.. Which is because I followed a link early in the article which led to Obama's "plan"


The article ends with this...

David Brooks, Obama Plan Birther [Updated] -- Daily Intelligencer

Update: Brooks, to his credit, has posted an addendum to his column acknowledging that Obama does have a plan, but deems it "not nearly adequate":

The above column was written in a mood of justified frustration over the fiscal idiocy that is about to envelop the nation. But in at least one respect I let my frustration get the better of me. It is true, as the director of the Congressional Budget Office has testified, that the administration has not proposed a specific anti-sequester proposal that can be scored or passed into law. It is not fair to suggest, as I did, that tax hikes for the rich is the sole content of the president’s approach. The White House has proposed various constructive changes to spending levels and entitlement programs. These changes are not nearly adequate in my view, but they do exist, and I should have acknowledged the balanced and tough-minded elements in the president’s approach.

Second Update: Brooks does an interview with Ezra Klein, which ends up as a total takedown. Brooks admits Obama does have a plan, but takes refuge in the claim that the Congressional Budget Office didn't score it. Klein informs him that the CBO doesn't score informal negotiating offers, but did score the elements as they appeared in Obama's budget. The best part is when Brooks asserts that a centrist Democrat like Robert Rubin would be proposing something way more moderate than what Obama is offering:

Brooks: In my ideal world, the Obama administration would do something Clintonesque: They’d govern from the center; they’d have a budget policy that looked a lot more like what Robert Rubin would describe, and if the Republicans rejected that, moderates like me would say that’s awful, the White House really did come out with a centrist plan.

Klein: But I’ve read Robert Rubin’s tax plan. He wants $1.8 trillion in new revenues.

That is a brutal bluff-calling.



Despite all appearances, I don't want to be too hard here on Brooks. He's trying to be fair-minded and reasonable. But his admission that he misstated Obama's alleged lack of a fiscal plan out of "frustration," rather than ignorance is damning. Everybody gets things wrong but you can't just print false factual claims to make a point! Ultimately he's just displaying a kind of sloppy thinking. He conceives of politics in grand ideological archetypes, rather than building his beliefs on the basis of facts and evidence. He's inadvertently displaying how a generalized belief in moderation unmoored in deeper policy grounding leads you badly astray.

He even admits what he said is pure bullshit.

 

[waltky]

Granny hopes dey pass dat bill so dey can save some money an' send her dat 2nd stimulus check...

CBO: Senate immigration bill would cut deficits by $200 billion over decade
Tuesday, June 18,`13 > The immigration bill under consideration in the Senate would reduce federal deficits by nearly $200 billion over the next decade, and continue generating savings in the years beyond, even after millions of new citizens became eligible for health-care and welfare benefits, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday.

The long-awaited report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office marked a major victory for the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators who have spent months negotiating the details of the measure. Although some conservatives say the bill would cost the nation billions of dollars, CBO analysts concluded the opposite, undercutting a potentially powerful argument against the legislation. “This report is a huge momentum boost for immigration reform,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), the lead Democratic negotiator. “This debunks the idea that immigration reform is anything other than a boon to our economy, and robs the bill’s opponents of one of their last remaining arguments.”

The White House welcomed the report, saying in a statement, “Today, we have more proof that bipartisan commonsense immigration reform will be good for economic growth and deficit reduction: this time, in the form of a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimate.” The 63-page report concludes that the Senate’s immigration bill would increase the U.S. population by about 10.4 million people through 2023, and about 16.2 million by 2033. In addition, about 8 million people currently living in the United States illegally would gain legal status under the legislation, the CBO said.

Those changes would boost spending on federal programs, including tax credits for low-income families, health-care benefits and law enforcement, the agency found. But those costs would be more than offset by an increase in tax revenue stemming from a larger workforce, it said. In its second decade, when people currently living here illegally would become eligible for federal benefits, the legislation would reduce deficits by as much as $1 trillion, the CBO said. The report comes at a critical moment in the months-long effort to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws. The Senate began voting Tuesday afternoon on amendments to a comprehensive proposal, which Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has vowed to push to final passage by the Fourth of July recess.

Meanwhile, in the House, bipartisan talks are at a stalemate, and Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) promised his rank and file in a private meeting Tuesday that he did not intend to hold a vote on an immigration package that does not have the support of a majority of House Republicans. Concerns in the House have focused primarily on border security and the proposed path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, issues that the CBO report will do little to quell.

CBO: Senate immigration bill would cut deficits by $200 billion over decade - The Washington Post

 

[ScienceRocks]

Good,

If it is focused on the bs and funds current level of science, technology and infrastructure=good.