Today is Pres. Obama’s bipartisan summit to go long ball on debt and deficit reduction.
My bet: history will repeat itself and Republicans will get snookered again.
Remember the budget deal that averted the government shutdown last December?
Headlines said it would cut spending by $38 billion (with an “b”).
Turns out that the real impact was only $352 million (with an “m”).
According to the Washington Post:
Budget deal: CBO analysis shows initial spending cuts less than expected
A federal budget compromise that was hailed as historic for proposing to cut about $38 billion would reduce federal spending by only $352 million this fiscal year, less than 1 percent of the bill’s advertised amount, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
And, a mere 6 months after the agreement – that was supposed to hold until the end of 2012, Obama is walking back the full extension of the Bush tax plan and the tax-based stimulus provisions.
As the original Grandma Homa would say: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
* * * * *
Clever planning: The President shrewdly invited the GOP political hacks, but left Ryan, Coburn and Portman — the only guys who understand the numbers – off the guest list.
I guess that a fact-free summit will go smoother
Also, the President scheduled the summit the day before another likely-to-be-dismal jobs report … hoping that the jobs report will get ignored.
Trust, HomaFiles won’t ignore it.
* * * * *
What to watch: I’m betting that most of the Dems “cuts” will be capping growth in spending (which isn’t a cut !) and the usual phantom attack on waste & fraud (how are we doing on the $500 billion of w&f that was supposed to come out of Medicare?).
