Daily Caller:
House Republicans are putting in place a rule next year, when they take control, that they hope will help them win the battle over how to reduce the deficit.
Republicans, by and large, want to make the deficit smaller by cutting spending and consider tax increases to be anathema. But they did not do a lot to reduce spending when they had control of Congress and the White House over the last decade, though top Bush White House officials have argued they did what they could in light of the national security demands placed on them after 9/11.
Democrats, for the most part, often prefer to offset spending with a mix of spending cuts and increased taxes, though they haven’t actually done so very often in the last four years.
To prevent deficit reduction from being used as an excuse for tax hikes, Republicans are getting rid of the “Pay-As-You-Go” rule and replacing it with a “Cut-As-You-Go” rule.
The rule will require that any legislation that seeks to increase mandatory spending (which is spending that once added to the federal budget recurs year after year and is thus permanent) cuts spending by a similar amount.
“If it is your intention to create a new government program, you must also terminate or reduce spending on an existing government program of equal or greater size–in the very same bill,” said Rep. John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who will become Speaker of the House on Jan. 5.
Boehner, in a speech this fall, said the CUTGO idea was conceived by Sen.-elect Roy Blunt, a former member of the House GOP leadership.
“As [Blunt] put it, ‘Let’s turn the activists for big government on each other, instead of letting them gang up on the taxpayer,’” Boehner said. “Through this public discussion, we might end up finding out that neither program has a whole lot of merit in the first place.”
...
The Democrat response so far is to call the requirement a "scheme." They still seem to think insult is a persuasive form of argument. They are going to have to work on that with Republicans now in charge.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
Comments
Post a Comment