I think it's important that we understand the deal on the debt limit that the Republican House and Senate leadership has proposed for months now.
It is that Republicans will vote for a $2.5T increase in the debt limit only if the bill includes $2.5T in cuts in spending and no increases in tax rates. I have pointed out to all within earshot -- sometimes a quarter mile -- that the deal would get done because the proposed cuts would be over a long period, probably ten years. That the proposed period is ten years was finally confirmed in very recent news stories on the negotiations.
The simplest of arithmetic says that what the Republicans propose, and what the Democrats vehemently oppose, is a cut of $250B per year in spending. Perhaps you have heard that the debt limit increase both sides want will postpone the need for another one until the lame duck session after the 2012 election. That would mean that whether the Republicans get their cuts or not, the deficit from now until then would be about $2.5T, an amount not significantly different from the $1.5T/year rate the deficit is now running.
That confirms that the cuts would only be a few percent of the expenditures planned over that period. Indeed, $250B is only a little more than six times the $38B cut out of the 2011 appropriations bill that was said to be trivial.
Keep all that in mind when you hear Democrats and their media talking-head hand puppets read from Democrat talking-points scripts and say that the Republicans want huge, Draconian -- Draconian! -- cuts.
Those of the tea party persuasion might say, "What's the big deal?"
