US Debt and Super Committee Budget

[chinaco]

It sounds like the big targets will be defense and health care.


Options:

1. Cut Defense Spending. A big part of that is two wars, one of which is now considered to be wrongly motivated.
2. Cut Health Care.

I know of almost no one (left or right) that is interested in funding the continuation of those wars!

Likewise, I know many people (left and right) that are going through fear and loathing about access to Medical care.

UPDATE 1-U.S. debt super committee vexes even lobbyists | Reuters

This will be the event that will be used to differentiate both parties going into the next election.

The whole idea of lobbyist influencing any of this kinda sickening. If they can't get to the committee, they will be working to influence congress during the actual vote.

 

[Texas Proud]

From the debate that went on prior to the deal, it seems that the savings from the war was not supposed to be included in the 'amount saved'...

IOW, it was going to happen anyhow, so it does not count as a cut... I would be upset if they now claim it as a cut in spending..


Edit to add.... also, I do not see the lobby working on the final vote as much as normal.... it is supposed to be an up or down vote... no amendments allowed...

 

[ziggy29]

IOW, it was going to happen anyhow, so it does not count as a cut... I would be upset if they now claim it as a cut in spending..

Would that also be true of the Bush tax cuts expiring? If it was going to happen anyhow, it's not a tax increase, right?

Having said that, the cuts in defense are pretty easy to see as Iraq and Afghanistan wind down. The cuts in health care? Not sure how that will play out. Good luck with reelection if it means cutting Medicare, guys. Maybe they will go after payments to the states, as in Medicaid and CHIP and stuff. But that's bad medicine (pun intended) in the long term, IMO. We need to contain cost increases in health care, but not at the expense of making even more folks uninsured and one serious illness or injury away from losing everything.

 

[chinaco]

From the debate that went on prior to the deal, it seems that the savings from the war was not supposed to be included in the 'amount saved'...

IOW, it was going to happen anyhow, so it does not count as a cut... I would be upset if they now claim it as a cut in spending..


...

Not including the war dividend would make sense.... assuming they are ending.

I guess that could mean is that health care programs will have massive cuts to get the numbers.

 

[MichaelB]

Would that also be true of the Bush tax cuts expiring? If it was going to happen anyhow, it's not a tax increase, right?

Having said that, the cuts in defense are pretty easy to see as Iraq and Afghanistan wind down. The cuts in health care? Not sure how that will play out. Good luck with reelection if it means cutting Medicare, guys. Maybe they will go after payments to the states, as in Medicaid and CHIP and stuff. But that's bad medicine (pun intended) in the long term, IMO. We need to contain cost increases in health care, but not at the expense of making even more folks uninsured and one serious illness or injury away from losing everything.

+1

From The Trigger - Blog - OpenCongress

Non-Defense
All other areas of non-defense spending would share the other half of the required cuts. Approximately $15 billion of the annual non-defense cuts would hit mandatory programs, so the share of cuts to be split each year between non-defense discretionary spending would be about $39 billion. In 2013 the cuts would happen evenly through a presidentially-ordered sequestration that would slash budgets for each category proportional to their 2012 baseline. Each year after that it would be up to congressional appropriators to decide how to divvy up the cuts. There are hundreds of federal programs that would be up for cuts, including things like foreign affairs programs, border security, the FAA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, special education, and more.
Medicare and Mandatory Programs
Medicare would take the brunt of the mandatory-spending cuts, about $12 billion per year. Another $3 billion or so would be spread among other mandatory programs. Importantly, Medicare beneficiaries would not experience the cuts directly. Instead, all healthcare providers that provide services to Medicare patients would face a 2% reduction in their government compensation. The rest of the mandatory spending cuts would come from things like crop insurance, health care fraud and abuse control, the FHA, the crime victims fund, highway safety, etc. Most of the largest mandatory programs are exempted, however including Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, S-CHIP, veterans’ benefits and federal retirement funds.