Posted on 01/01/2024 8:05:42 PM PST by 11th_VA
Congress faces more government funding headaches in 2024 as lawmakers stare down what could be steeper spending cuts than leaders bargained for as part of a previous bipartisan budget deal…
Lawmakers agreed under the FRA to cap base discretionary spending in the next fiscal year to $1.59 trillion. That includes a ceiling of about $886 billion for defense spending and almost $704 billion for nondefense spending.
Experts say a handshake agreement made as part of the larger debt limit deal would allow for north of $60 billion in additional funding on the nondefense side.
Lawmakers were expected to work from these numbers when crafting their 12 annual funding bills, but the law also included a penalty meant to incentivize the House and Senate to finish their work by Jan. 1.
Under the penalty, Biden officials say, a 1 percent cut to defense and nondefense programs — made from fiscal 2023 funding levels — will be enforced after April 30 if the Jan. 1 deadline is missed.
Experts and congressional aides are now warning that nondefense funding could wind up seeing a harder hit from the threat of the automatic 1 percent cut. This is because the new scoring by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows funding for nondefense is over $30 billion higher than its recorded levels initially set by lawmakers for fiscal 2023.
Experts and aides say the increase is due to a combination of factors, including funding changes for veterans programs and the Indian Health Service.
On the other side, aides say dollars for defense could see a cut, known as sequestration, of about $10 billion, if Congress fails to approve full-year spending bills by April 30...
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
So non-defense spending was Agreed to 704 billion, but CBO now says they need 734 billion. But the 1% cut will be 704B - 1% … leaving non-defense 37 Billion below current level … I’ll take that deal …
All the more reason not to give another dollar to Ukraine.
But globohomo wants gay marriage and tranny story hour in Ukraine...
Lawmakers were expected to work from these numbers when crafting their 12 annual funding bills, but the law also included a penalty meant to incentivize the House and Senate to finish their work by Jan. 1.
And there it is....lawmakers expected to work....what an crock of sh*t if one has ever been printed.
As if no one knows what the playbook is, I’ll give the laymens version:
1. pretend to be working on the budget, while doing nothing, and having staffers come up with all their wants, whims and desires.
2. wait for something big to happen or create something big, so Congress doesn’t have to work on the bills and concentrate on the ‘big event’ because without their consultation and leadership the world will collapse.
3. go on some spring recess so they can go home to their constituents
4. come back and deal with another ‘big event’, pushing their budget work to the back burner even longer
5. all hands on deck for the upcoming election
6. come early September, there are no budget bills so they just have to pass another CR or Omnibus that is filled with the wants, whims and desires of the staffers that wrote it.
And people tore into Gaetz for trying to stop this.
Covid spending needs to be backed completely out of the system. The baseline for federal spending should be the full expenditures in 2019. Work from that number and make it fit.
That doesn’t fly.
2019 had trillions of dollars less debt, that now will have 4% tagged onto it and more if 10 yr rates head back up, as they may.
You can’t go back when you are borrowing money. Population rise hits you and interest on growing debt hits you.
The key to all of this is inflation. They *think* they know what inflation is, and if you go surfing around you’ll find Friedman quotes about money supply and whatever, but no one really knows. If money supply was the story, then supply and demand would have no impact.
Money is a substance created by QE from nothingness. There are no laws of nature or even imagination that need apply to it. All that really matters is Congress is going to have to obfuscate things — and before everyone jumps up and down about the GOP needing to reduce spending, go have a look at the GDP equation. Govt spending is an explicit part of it.
The gop decided not to fight the increase, and ran home. They could have objected, but chose to support the increase.
Should have been a 10% mandatory cut.
At least we see the way forward. We need to increase the penalty.
Of course they’ll just increase the amount in the final deal though :-(
No Biden didn’t give that to them... the GOP did! They control the house which owns the purse strings.
You are falling into the uniparty gambit.
Who cares? It is like worrying about how much booze is left on the Titanic or something like that.
Notice “Budget cuts” are defined as not increasing spending.
No impact on what?
Yes, the amount of money in circulation is important, but the idea you can keep creating far more money than the increase in productivity, without consequence, is silly.
How will they ever survive with a 1% cut.
Cut all funding to any and all illegal parties it’s a net gain by the billions.
Include states and cities schools ..........................
On inflation.
Did it for 10+ yrs via QE 2009 to 2019. No significant inflation. Negative interest rates in most of the world.
That was not some individual quirky week or month. That was over 10 yrs.
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