House Republicans Propose the Impossible

In both the next round of Republican political theater and the next round of attacks on HCR, House Republicans are proposing budget cuts they say will save $2.5 Trillion over ten years.  What are they going to cut?  Well, surprise!  They have no specific proposals.  They want to return non defense, non entitlement spending to 2006 levels.  Their plan is simple.  If Obama presents a budget larger than that in those areas, they will say “No!”.  That and lying are the only things they are actually adept at doing.  Then they will blame Obama.  If any cuts in Obama’s budget do cause pain to Main Street, they will blame Obama for the pain.  But over and above this, they are attempting to cripple the implementation of those parts of HCR that actually benefit Main Street.

House Republicans unveiled on Thursday a list of spending cuts [Republican Liar delinked] they said would save $2.5 trillion over 10 years.

Most of the savings, $2.29 trillion, would come from holding spending at 2006 levels on the part of the federal budget that isn’t entitlement or defense spending, according to the document released by the Republican Study Committee [Republican Liar delinked] chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH).

The so-called discretionary part of the budget represents just 16 percent of federal spending. Many experts have said it’s impossible for the nation to cut its way to fiscal health by addressing just that part of the budget.

But by attacking that first, Republicans were going after the easiest part of the budget since trying to cut entitlements like Social Security and Medicare will make cutting everything else seem like child’s play.

Besides holding discretionary spending to 2006 levels, other savings would come from not spending money to implement certain parts of the new health care law.

According to the document, $80 billion in savings over 10 years would come from not spending on the roll out of various programs related to the new health care law as well as not spending federal money to defend health care law related lawsuits… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NPR>

There is one bright side to this.  If we can keep spreading that this is what they are doing, we can Americans will be reminded of how Republicans govern.