Fiscal Sacrifice
The president came to Washington, demanded shared sacrifice, got his fiscal cliff deal and returned to Hawaii. According to Bloomberg taxes will go up for 77.1 percent of American families. The Congressional Budget Office says the deal will cost $4 trillion over the next decade. Spending cuts? … Maybe later. Kevin O’brien has a nice rant about that here.
The 2012 Year In Cartoons
I think of Bokbluster as a cartoon wormhole into the news. Here’s a worm’s eye view of the 2012 year in cartoons.
(Click an image to see the full size post. Use your browser “back” button to return to this page.)
Budget Baseline Camp
Uncle Sam’s starting point for spending is a baseline of the previous year CBO projections for the coming year.
“The most absurd current example is Mr. Obama’s claim that his “$4 trillion” plan reduces the deficit by about $800 billion over 10 years by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But those “savings,” as he calls them, are measured against a White House budget office spending baseline that is fictional. Those wars are already being unwound and everyone knows the money will never be spent. But they are called “savings” to gull the public and make the deficit reduction add up to a large-sounding $4 trillion.”
