We avoided a government shutdown at the last minute Friday with a budget deal for the rest of the year.
So what’s in it, and will enough members of Congress actually vote for it?
Neither side got what they wanted out of the negotiations, but that’s how the sausage is made in Washington.
But, speaker John Boehner did nudge up the dollar total on budget cuts another 5 billion dollars.
You’d think the GOP would be dancing in the aisles.
But, some are not, like Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota have all blasted the agreement.
The two sides agreed to cut $13 billion from funding for programs at the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services as well as over $1 billion in a cut across non-defense agencies, forcing everyone to tighten their belt. There will be reductions to housing assistance programs and some health care programs along with $8 billion in cuts to our budget for State and Foreign Operations.
Congressman Jeb Hensarling of Texas says, it’s a good deal for now, but the real heavy lifting is yet to come.
And before we all learn the intricacies of the Republican and Democratic budget proposals, and we will know every excrutiating detail by Fall, the debt ceiling needs to be lifted next month.
And that is no joke.
Congressman Louie Gohmert agrees it’s not as pseudo-dramatic as the shutdown fight, because the ramifications are global.
But he wants real changes in the way we spend, and what we spend on…
Speaker Boehner agrees that real changes are needed, but, as far as the debt ceiling goes, you don’t fool around with default.
The Republican plan by Congressman Paul Ryan would make deep cuts in the budget, including privatizing Medicare, and bring the budget into balance by 2040.
The President will outline his long term proposal in a speech this week.