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Staff Briefing Notes on the Boehner Plan

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  July 25th, 2011 at 04:39 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I was just given the following bullet points from one of the individuals who got briefed at the staff level on John Boehner’s proposal:

On background if you would please*, just left the meeting on the Boehner deal.

Some highlights:

  1. Outlay reduction for FY 12 – $25 billion cut in discretionary spending.
  2. Debt limit increase right away – $1 trillion
  3. Does not touch Obamacare funding, Medicare or Social Security
  4. Includes the McConnell automatic increase without a vote – they tried to sell us on “your boss isn’t actually voting for a debt limit increase”
  5. Joint Select Cmte Created – 12 Members, if Commission recs pass on entitlement reform, then Pres gets another debt limit increase
  6. Budget Authority in FY 12 is $ 7 billion less than FY 11 in discretionary spending.

* I did get permission before running with this.

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COMMENTS

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  • westbrook348

    Too bad the cuts are drops in the bucket compared to what we need, & all the other aspects of the plan are outright horrible. If Boehner insists on THIS as the GOP’s plan, I don’t see how the Republican party remains viable.

  • Aaron Gardner

    No testicular fortitude could be found in the lot of them, yet squawk they will.

    These idiots are going to give away the farm.

  • snowshooze

    It’s worse than I could have imagined.
    Who’s side are they on, anyway?

  • sarg01

    There’s 1.2T of cuts with that 1 T of ceiling lift.

    Also it mentions caps with auto-cuts if the caps are exceeded.

  • Adjoran

    as outlined earlier by Boehner.

    I hope your sources were just relaying the most objectionable parts and leaving out everything else, because this isn’t a plan, it’s a crap sandwich.

  • snowshooze

    Until there IS a budget, and there ain’t. It is sheer fantasy.
    So, tell the Democrats to shave a couple bucks of… Sure, we could do that… what you got to offer?

  • http://aposematic.wordpress.com aposematic

    I hear that cuts to match increase but I also here 1T for 1T. That does not compute. Since the cuts are over 10 years and the debt increase is for 1 year then the cuts to be equal should be 10 times the increase. Also the starting line is the present deficit of 1.2T. That alone should be cut by 1.2T if the budget is to ever be balanced. Does not compute; but I guess, these number crunchers were all recently public educated. As long as we are running deficits, the debt will continue to increase, not decrease. Does not compute!

  • avgjo

    if they fail to keep the terms of their big win last year, they will spawn a 3rd party. That’s what will happen if they keep this ‘we have to do something’ crap up.

  • runner12

    How is this different then then McConnell plan? No new House member who promised to change Washington should go along with this. If they do, we need to hang it around their necks and vote them out.

  • altexas

    I just want to go back to no debt increase, no increase in revenues (except from more employed people) and start cutting crap like obamacare, the Department of Education and the vacation expenses for White House residents. Stop spending, stop spending, stop spending. Stop borrowing, stop borrowing, stop borrowing.

  • littlehouse18

    Do they mean that if the commission recommendations pass, then they don’t have to vote on the debt limit, it just goes up automatically( ie they don’t have to overcome a veto; they have to pass cuts for anything more to happen)? That’s not quite McConnell, but does share the automatic aspect.

    At any rate, it doesn’t look good to me. It seems like almost a clean debt increase. The real cuts look like peanuts.

  • inovrmihd

    http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/07/25/obama-to-banks-were-not-defaulting/

    just wanted to make sure you all have seen this.

  • concap

    The Republican Party
    The Democratic Party
    The Tea Party Movement
    The hard left Progressive Party (currently run by Obama)

    Since 1945, there have been six Democratic Presidents that lowered spending to GDP, compared to only two Republicans, neither of which were Reagan.

    Nixon was the last president fielded by the Republican Party, who actually lowered Government spending in relationship to GDP.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
    National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

    National Debt Increases for 53rd Straight Fiscal Year; Jumped $1.65 Trillion in FY 2010
    http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/national-debt-increases-53rd-straight-fi

    The Republican Party has not represented it?s small government constituents like they claim they do.

    I think this is the true reason the Tea Party Movement has formed.

    With the voting power, the Republican Party currently holds over the Tea Party movement, do you ever see a hard core fiscal conservative ever getting the nomination for President?

    Or will it always be someone like Bush, McCain or Huckabee, Mitt and other hiders waving the fiscal flag just to get elected?

    Will the Tea Party intentionally split off? NO! NO! NO!

    The Republican Party is morphing and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

    A new branch of the Republican Party is inadvertently being formed by Republicans who refuse to advocate their social concerns on the state level and move to the fiscal right on a federal level with the most of Republican Tea Party.

    Most of the current Republican Party is morphing with the Moderate Democratic Conservatives who are being forced to move to the right by the radical hard left, thus insuring a social leaning branch of the Republican Party.

    I think it will end up something like this.

    The Republican Party
    (Tea Party, fiscal, Constitutional)

    The Social Republican Party
    (Left leaning Republicans morphed with Right leaning Democrats, the mod?s, thus phasing out the Democratic Party)

    The new forth party we have now, will then be the third party.

    The hard left Progressive Party
    (The one Obama is representing now)

    In the end, do to the combined size of the Social Republican Party,
    (Left leaning Republicans morphed with Right leaning Democrats, the mod?s)

    The third party, Tthe Progressives will be left powerless and phase out along with the left over Democrats that did not morph with the right, then we will be back to two a two party system again.

    The Republican Party on the right
    (Tea Party, fiscal, Constitutional)

    And the

    The Social Republican Party On the left.
    (both Left leaning Republican morphed with Right leaning Democrats, the Mod?s)

  • jimmuy8

    Really, I’m just dumbfounded that they are spending more time and energy figuring out how to spin their surrender than they ever spent planning their attack.
    How can they not know we are watching and we WILL NOT fall for any of their “tried and true,” good ‘ol boy Washington games?

    They already broke their promise on repeal of Obamacare.
    They already broke their promise on $100 billion in spending cuts.
    And now they are going to break their promise again?

  • Paul Seale

    Sorry Erick,

    Based on everything I have read, including an Allen West endorsement of this proposal, what you posted sounds radically different.

    I want to see the plan in person and read it for my self.

    If it contains what you posted then it should not go into effect.

    However, if it contains what I have read from other conservative sources, then it deserves at least a read.

    This is not defined by a one quarter fight. If we can get 80% of what we want in this bill and leave the ability for CCB or an amendment to be pushed to the states then it is a step forward.

    Speaking to many of my co-workers, family members and members of my church over the past couple of days agree that as long as the deficit is being dealt with and the ball is moving forward substantively and the government does not default or shut down – we win.

    I am sorry I cannot be part of an internal power struggle between DeMint and McConnell. I just cant.

    My family and country deserve more.

    If I am wrong, then I openly apologize ahead of time.

  • westbrook348

    All it does is help Obama & the Democrats perpetuate fraud on the American people. It’s not 1.2T now, it’s 1.2T over 10 yrs. That’s only 120B/yr, probably backloaded to years 9 & 10, out of a deficit of $1.6T/yr. I mean, should we just start saying that the deficit is $16 trillion? Maybe then people would realize how screwed up our fiscal situation is..

  • carolina

    The bullets presented sound like particular issues that caught this staffers attention, and they are out of context.

  • runner12

    Everyone needs to read this, especially those on here who are claiming “the sky will fall” and preaching capitulation.

  • johnt

    Somebody wake me up, Things are, were trending in favor of sanity, O’s position was weakening, and it appears the Repubs are throwing him a lifeline. Where’s the booze?

  • sarg01

    It’s fine to be cautious, but this description just doesn’t match what I’m hearing from other sources. I’ll grant that other sources may be biased, but this points highlight only the negatives – as if the staffer is trying to sabotage the deal.

    $25 b in immediate cuts is underwhelming, though.

  • earlgrey

    as I understand it, the commission recommendations go up for a majority vote — no filibusters and no amendments. If they find the required amount of savings in the commission and they get passed by majority vote only, than Obama can request the debt limit increase automatically. He will get the increase unless 2/3rds (of either house I believe) votes no.

  • runner12

    it always wise to begin with examining the truthfulness of the person in question.

    When it comes to truthfulness and plain dealing Red State is around 95%, establishment Repub leadership around 1-3%.

    As sad as it is, I think you will find that the bullet list above IS the plan.

  • acat

    the relatively – using your terms – Speaker of the House than POTUS.

    The President proposes and accepts the budget, but it’s what happens in the House and, to a lesser extent, the Senate that really lard it up.

    Mew

  • avgjo

    marginalized.

    What I’m not sure is that some (well-meaning) TP folks won’t, out of disgust, splinter off. Especially when you consider how many/most of those running the party itself seem fully opposed to any sort of real conservatism.

    we shall see.

  • avgjo

    marginalized.

    What I’m not sure is that some (well-meaning) TP folks won’t, out of disgust, splinter off. Especially when you consider how many/most of those running the party itself seem fully opposed to any sort of real conservatism.

    we shall see.

  • sarg01

    … over 10 years.

    In fact, it’s probably a much bigger number than that due to entitlement growth.

    My position has never been that spending doesn’t need cuts. It’s that the R leadership are not the feckless quislings so many make them out to be.

  • http://teapartisan.wordpress.com Loren Heal

    OH-08 and Kentucky Senate primary voters, please do your work.

  • acat

    The McConnell plan is nothing that I would want to find outside my litter box, and that Boehner has incorporated it says nothing flattering about him either.

    The plan, as it sits, is unacceptable.

    And I recall, Paul, that during one 2:00am cono, you were not happy with McConnell. Have you changed you rmind on that?

    Mew

  • cordpt

    At least they’ll have the opportunity to score political victories on the issue till the elections.

  • cordpt

    If you actually believed that they would actually comply with those promises while the Democrats control the Senate and the presidency, it tells more about you than them.

    There’s only so much you can achieve with a majority in the House and nothing else.

  • fpete13527

    nt

  • Ned Reck

    If you allow an intoxicated individual to get behind the wheel of a vehicle that you own… the law holds you responsible as the DUI offender.

    If the Republicans abdicate their responsibilities… and allow this irresponsible POTUS to get behind the wheel of the vehicle they own…. they will be responsible for the McConnell automatic increase without a vote.

    In my book… the Repubs would be no less cowards than the legislative Dems who left Wisconsin to hide-out in Illinois back during that brouhaha.

    Ned Reck

  • Right Reason

    God forbid they should do something stupid like work toward actually solving the problem.

    -sarc off.

  • carolina

    says GOP plan “would implement the House-passed #CutCapBalance Act in a way that would be successful”

  • acat

    I’m thinking it’s a really good thing the semi-mythical European explorers who purchased Manhattan aren’t still around … blue beads have been replaced by political points, but they’re both still insanely overvalued by .. folks who have gone native….

    Mew

  • cordpt

    It’s the Democrat majority in the Senate and Obama (and as secondary contributing factor, the fixation on the CCB and its $111 billions in cuts).

    I thought this was easy to understand.

  • steebo77

    The current deficit is ~$1.5 trillion a year ($15 trillion over 10 years). If both rounds of cuts in Boehner?s plan are enacted they amount to $300 billion a year ($3 trillion over 10 years). That means we would still face new debt accumulated over the next decade of ~$12 trillion. Current debt totals ~$14.3 trillion. The two debt ceiling hikes would allow it to rise to ~$16.9 trillion by 2012. The debt ceiling would have to be raised many times after the second hike in 2012. And we would still be on a trajectory to accumulate total debt of ~$26.3 trillion by 2022.

    This plan is crap.

  • http://www.ArchitecturalShots.com mdyou

    n/t

  • sarg01

    It seems to declare any automatic increase as identical to McConnel. However, the info I’ve seen strongly suggests the auto increase only applies if a cut of at least 1.8T passes both chambers and is signed into law by the President.

    It is true that there might be ways to play with that 1.8T number to reduce its effectiveness. However, it’s clear to me that this “automatic increase” isn’t the same as the McConnell punt-to-Obama.

  • bk

    If Obama doesn’t need Congressional approval to raise the debt limit according to Boehner and McConnell, then he might as well just unilaterally raise it by $3T now and be done with it.

  • acat

    (anything else I could say would be .. offensive)

    Hiss

  • acat

    Obama has created a crisis.

    You (and McConnell and now Boehner, apparently) are determined to let him use it for his purposes.

    I’m saying .. why let it go to waste?

    Mew

  • cordpt

    Again: as long as Obama is the president and the Dems control the Senate, no meaningful budgetary reform will happen.

    The amount of ad hominem arguments and cliches you may write won’t change that a bit ,

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    Anything less than $10 trillion in the next 10 years does not fix the problem.

    And yes, who cares about next 10 years anyway, it is next year and the 2-5 years after that can be influenced.

    Now, IF we can get the $1 T in ‘cuts’ to be $100 billion cut next year, as a DOWNPAYMENT ON FUTURE CUTS, then good.

    If the $1 T is ‘all we can scrape together over the next 10 year’ … well, that is a mere 10% of what we need. WE cannot pretend that is a real fix.

    This is why Coburn came up with a $9 trillion plan, he realized we needed to have something that reflected the size of the challenge.

    We have a $1 TRILLION gap NEXT YEAR.

    $25 billion is NOTHING. Anything less than a few hundred billion in cuts is really in adequate.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    There is a budget. Obama 2012 budget.
    Cuts to Obama 2012 baseline are cuts to an absurdly high baseline.
    It should be EASY to cut $5 trillion off that.
    The Ryan budget is a good middle-of-the-road acheivable budget, that does that.

    We need to rebaseline to Ryan because the Obama budget is a fantasy. Anything that spends more than Ryan isnt a ‘cut’ but is ‘spending more than we can afford’.

  • bk
  • snowshooze

    And it is the reason it is pitched that way… it buries people, they think it is an even deal. Apparently, I cannot demonstrate this simple reality.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    We get liberal media FUD, we get the White House FUD, Democrat / DNC FUD and now even the conservative activist FUD. Fear Uncertainty Doubt. These are points of serious concern, but I’d like the whole plan laid out in context.

    If it aligns with Cut, Cap and balance, as Boehner claims, then most or all of the Cuts from Cut cap balance would be in there.

    Budget authority not a killer, but the low-ball on the discretionary might be.

    “If we can get 80% of what we want in this bill and leave the ability for CCB or an amendment to be pushed to the states then it is a step forward.”
    My challenge is that we need a $10 trillion 10 year cut and $400 billion 1-year cut. IMHO. They started with going for about 25% of what we need, and are compromising down to 15%. Good enough?

    I agree that forward incremental progress is better than no progress, but these are low single digit cuts in a bloated Government.

    There is much uncertainty of what can be done, should be done, and IS being done due to the FUD factor. Another reason why open and transparent legislative process would be better than these last-minute plans and back-room deals.

  • snowshooze

    A baseline does not a budget make.
    Imagine the biggest number there is.. infinity…( We can’t imagine infinity )
    And cut a couple bucks off that…
    It is still infinity…lol
    So, anyway… If we cut a dollar off last years approved budget, we have a solid number.

  • sarg01

    Remember, the operational norm for Congress is to simply up the ceiling, period.

    Any cut of any size represents a win versus the status quo, particularly if the question comes around again before the next election.

    This debate is being fought entirely on ground of our choosing. The Reid/Obama proposal is supposed to have cuts with no tax increases. They’re probably mostly fake cuts, but our congresscritters have forced the Dems off their original position thrice:

    1) Obama budget – must increase spending by a ton – denied, beat down, then drawn and quartered
    2) Gimme a “clean” increase – denied, not getting it
    3) Gonna have to raise taxes – the only thing we’re raising is a finger, guess which one

  • Paul Seale

    Understand your point, but I want to see stuff in writing.

  • ghostship

    Honestly, if this is the best the Republican party can do then the party deserves to fracture into a third party.

    Even though there’s little chance of it happening, maybe seeing Republicans split off for a third party would get the party leaders to actually grow a spine and fight for Conservative principles. God knows, nothing else seems capable of getting the voters message through the thick skulls of the party leadership.

  • Tbone

    ahead of time. How about wising up now?

  • Paul Seale

    As it sells out the Constituional duty of Congress while giving the President and Democrats everything they want and more.

    I want to see what this plan has in it and read it for my self.

    The only thing I’ve read with any credibility is from Heratige Foundation.. But again, I want to see the document my self.

    I feel I am being used by political operatives to score points against each other in a potential leadership show down (or to raise money for them selves).

    I want a solution and facts.

    I do not want a bad deal and hyperbole.

  • Paul Seale

    On the money.

    Right now Coburn’s plan appeals to be greatly.. 9 Trillion over 10 years.

  • Tbone

    It will be why people won’t vote for Republicans in November 2012.

  • Paul Seale

    Erick and I agree on about 98% of everything.

    However, when it comes to whether or not to compromise on this issue I simply disagree. I must in good conscience.

    Even on this we agree mostly – but I cannot take the big step of “crashing the car” to get what we want.

    I want to see documentation on this particular policy because it goes against so much of what I’ve read from various sources. Are they all wrong? (Allen West to Larry Kudlow, even ATR, etc)

    I do not want to be sucked into or used as a party to damage our potential in 2012 or ammunition in future leadership fights.

    I just am a risk adverse person and seek to do the right thing for the right reason. No more, no less.

    If I am wrong on this and the policy is as Erick states, I am man enough to own up to it and apologize.

  • Paul Seale

    If I am reading you, but the end of the year, we would have 3T in cuts.. I am unsure whether that would get our AAA bond rating back or not. I believe the number is 4T.

    I guess we could fudge the number like Reid and count 4 that way. lol.

  • sarg01

    Stopping 70 years of bad policy is going to take more than one election.

  • Tbone

    not those who are “risk adverse”. Shame on you.

  • sarg01

    It’s 3T, roughly. I’m sure part of it is Washington-esque “whatever-the-CBO-scores-as-a-cut” cut.

    It’s not the greatest thing ever. What it isn’t is nothing but political gains, which was the original McConnell proposal.

  • Paul Seale

    Hate to break this to you, but this is not Lexington. It shouldnt be Gettysburg either.

    I have stood in the gap many a time and fought nose to nose with liberals and what should be termed as neomarxist.

    To view this budget fight as some sort of revolutionary battle strikes me as odd and may be the core of the problem.

    I see this as a chance to get a real start at changing things, but the type of change we need wont happen in one sitting.

    It is going to take years and a dedication to this policy – and yes a balanced budget amendment.

    Hell will freeze over before Democrats and President Obama sign on to the policy we need. So, we apply Reagan’s 80% rule and move forward into 2012 and take it to the people.

    Be smart about it.

  • JSobieski

    Not when 2012 looks as favorable as it looks.

    George Washington did a lot of tactical retreating in the Revolutionary War. Nothing in the definition of conservativism requires fighting to death regardless of terrain.

    If the year was 2013, and Obama was in his second term I would agree with you. He isn’t, so the political calculus of keeping those mushy indendents on our side is critical for a real victory.

    The real difference between the CCB and the most recent Boehner plan is in the low double digit billions of dollars.

  • acat

    And if you’re looking at budget reform, then .. yeah. This is meaninglessly small potatoes.

    I’m looking at – and I’ve said this to you elsewhere, so you’ll understand me thinking you’re arguing disingenuously – the likely reaction from the Tea Party if the gutless DC {excrement}heads in so-called leadership cave now.

    Yes, the Dems are off their game. Not enough.

    We sent the freshman reps to congress in 2010 to repeal Obamacare, reduce spending, and start reducing the scope of government. If they fail at this, they’re zero for three going into 2012.

    Mew

  • acat

    Put a couple of the gutless worms in our so-called leadership into a more … appropriate frame of mind.

    There’s a lot of anger out here. We need it to stay directed at the Dems. Period. Capitulating on this – more accurately, being *seen* to capitulate on this will not be helpful in 2012.

    Mew

  • johnnyd

    and tell the American people we need control of the House, Senate and the White House to get real spending cuts enacted. Tell the voters that we need to get the Dems out of the way so we can restore our country and repeal Obamacare and the financial bill to get the govt the hell out of the way of business. The govt should not be in the business of picking the winners and losers.

    Make it the rally cry for 2012.