Since the federal government spending is either payments to individuals (social security, Medicare, etc) or block grants to states, or salaries to federal employees, this is hard to do quickly.

Cutting block grants to states increases unemployment and increases the deficit through lower taxes received. Cutting federal employees is a lengthy process that takes months–probably can’t get done by October, or just barely; limited actual savings.

Cuts to SSand Medicare also take a bit of planning.

What’s left is travel expenses, ooffice materials, utilities and other small discretionary cuts– 10% ‘across the board’ kinda stuff. Not much of a dent.

‘House Leaders are saying that because the fiscal year is already four months in that the $100 billion should be construed as “an annualized” or “prorated” figure and only half should be done now.’

Hmmm. Last time I checked 4 months would be 1/3 of a year, not 1/2. I understand the argument. OTOH, the FY 2012 budget isn’t going to be passed on time either. Why perpetuate the prorated cuts into the next fiscal year? And in FY 2012 what’s to prevent them from prorating the cuts in that year? After all, we will be 3 or 4 months into FY 2012 before the budget gets passed. This could go on forever.

is not listed among the conservatives signing the letter. Eric Cantor is one of the ones that talks out of both sides of his mouth. He does not belong in leadership, period. He is a part of the problem, not the solution.

Personally, I’d like to see Rs commit to shaving more like 18+% of this year’s deficit off the budget which would be more like $200 billion. $100 billion isn’t even 10% of *this year’s* deficit.

I’d also like to see the Heritage Action web site award 500 or 1000 ‘personal impact’ points for becoming a precinct committeeman. Since PCs are so influential in settling party policy and activities, HA should be steering folks to PC service which greatly enhances a person’s personal impact (and is the only way we are going to effectively re-orient our party)

‘Course, if you know me, you knew I was going to say that! Thanks for the great post Russ, and visit us more often!

is not on the list. Guess we’ll have to remind him we didn’t eject Alan Grayson just so he (Webster) could be Democrat-lite.

I am happy to see Sandy Adams, from the next-door district, sign on.

If we don’t raise it, we’ll get an immediate 40% reduction in federal spending..

I believe this is a good thing. We can then decide which programs we want to save and what we want to cut. Either way, 40% of the spending has to go..

How can I possibly have confidence that they will cut later?

Once again the Republican Party not only proves it nickname of “The Stupid Party” but that its also a Party of cowards.

If they’re too afraid to cut a measly 100 billion then they definitely too timid to BALANCE the budget and REDUCE the size of government.

Sometimes I really, really HATE that my only choices are the D’s or the R’s.

$100 Billion is roughly 2% of this year’s total spending and a mere one-fifteenth of the projected FY deficit. That’s pocket change in the grand scheme of things.

If Republicans can’t find $100B to chop out of the next eight month’s spending, then we are in deep do-do going forward.

Boehner should come out and drop the hammer HARD so as to signal he is serious about controlling spending, and set the right tone for the next two years.

Tommorrow — Tuesday, February 1st at 8 p.m.
You can sign up for free phone call at Prosperityproject.org

In an email I recieved it stated, “Last week, (Paul Ryan) laid out a vision for returning our nation to a path of prosperity. The answer to our nation’s fiscal struggle isn’t spending more, it’s ending the binge of borrowing and debt.”

I signed up for the phone call.

- snips -
First, he said Republicans who want a cut of $100 billion were basing that on the Democrats’ original plan to spend $478 billion this year, which is $100 billion more than FY 2008. But that plan was never adopted, and the current CR would spend a little less this year, $463 billion. Riedl says that reduction means Republicans only have to cut $85 billion in the current fiscal year to reach 2008 levels, and prorating that over seven months means cuts in the neighborhood of $50 billion.

From there, members of the RSC could propose additional cuts on the House floor, and votes on various proposals would allow the GOP to test their popularity.
- -
Whatever passes the House is likely to be contested by Senate Democrats, who may adopt President Obama’s State of the Union plan to simply freeze spending at current levels. If so, the House and Senate may face a contentious two-week stretch in late February in which they will be under pressure to reach some agreement on government funding before the current CR expires on March 4.

(from theHill)
The real battle will be the Conference with the Senate.

Thanks for the link through to the GOP House members who ARE standing for fiscal discipline. Even though it is tempting to wonder just HOW disciplined one can be said to be when committing to only cut $100B, it’s better than a sharp stick in the eye.

I checked the Tennessee delegation and the results were disappointing. Of the GOP incumbent House members from the 111th Congress, only Marsha Blackburn (TN07) and Phil Roe (TN01) are on the list. John Duncan (TN02) is absent.

More troubling are the ranks of the 4 Freshman, all of whom ran as Conservatives. Diane Black (TN06) and Chuck Fleischmann (TN03) are on the list. But Stephen Fincher (TN08), who swore he was a fiscal Conservative despite his personally profiting from farm subsidies and who garnered a Red State endorsement early on, is conspicuously absent along with Scott DeJarlais (TN04).

The only Democrats remaining after the bloodbath (please insert stock disclaimer of violence incitement here) here in TN are Steve Cohen (TN09) who likely doesn’t even know he has the option to vote against spending and my Rep, Jim Cooper (TN05) for whom there are no appropriate words. Neither made the list …

and energy. No one cared about it nor thought it would do any good. What we wanted to here was that the new congress would overthrow Obamacare and Plug the holes where we are hemorrhaging. don’t forget that many of the Republicans that returned to congress were the RINO’s like Boehner. They rode in on the coat tails of the Tea Party and had no intention of adhering to the Pledge to start with. Since the house passed the repeal of Obamacare where is the push from the Speaker to the Senate to do something with the bill. It makes me think that Boehner may not be sincere in his hatred of Obamacare and really doesn’t want it repealed.

Another thing that hasn’t impressed those of us that understand what a Trillion dollars is, is that $100 Billion is nothing. It’s not even good pocket change when you think of the deficit being $14 Trillion dollars. $100 Billion X 10 = $1 Trillion It would take 140 times that to equal the deficit. The first order of business needs to be concentrating on stopping any further spending. At this point I don’t believe we have a congress yet that understands what we want or that wants to give us what we want. There seems to need to be another blood letting in the 2012 congress to get rid of not only more Democrats but the remaining RINO’s. I have been a life long Republican (60 years) but only because I am a conservative. The Tea party needs to get involved again and make sure the RINO’s know that We the people are still out here and we aren’t going away.

People keep talking about cutting SS. This kind of talk has to stop. We are losing the older generation because of this. That is why so many of them still vote Democrat. What we need to be doing with Soc Sec is not cutting the payments but in stopping the younger people from having to go on that system. Reform the program so that a mandatory system is put in place but one that is funded entirely by the participants and protecting it form the government hijacking the funds as they have been doing since Lyndon Johnson allowed that to start. That is why SS is broke in the first place. Just like Obamacare FDR looked at it s a way to enslave voters to continue to vote Democratic. It isn’t the governments place to run a retirement fund. If it was mandatory for me to have a plan that i could mange to a point i would have three times the retirement fund than i have right now and that is even with the market crash

Privatizing Soc Sec, Medicare and Medicaid would allow the people to have more control and better plan for their future. These are things that need to be done but we have to ensure that those that are already on the existing systems won’t lose any ground. with this kind of talk and ACTION many of the seniors that are afraid of the Republicans would come to the fold.

When we win the Senate in 2012 with the Presidency and a bigger majority in the House many reforms will be able to be put in place. Then the spending cuts can occur and the useless entitlement programs can be evaluated and terminated accordingly. Then we wil be talking about real cuts to the spending and deficit reduction.