spending cuts

One of the biggest budget questions last week was how much spending did the agreement on the continuing resolution actually cut.  The top line number -- $31 billion, $38 billion, whatever billion -- was the first big story because it was one of the ways the media determined who was doing better during the negotiations.  Then the bottom line gave House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) fits and made him scramble for votes to pass the CR when the Congressional Budget Office reported that spending would only be reduced by millions in 2011 rather than the billions he had proudly announced.  And then the top line was questioned again when CBO reported that the total would be between $20 billion and $25 billion over 10 years instead of the $38 billion total that seemed to seal the deal.

The truth is that every one one of these numbers is correct in some way.  It's also correct to say that everyone always seems to be fooled every year when different people involved in the budget debate use the number that best suits their purposes instead of agreeing upfront on how things should and will be measured.

Even if you put the close-to-impossible politics aside, any budget wonk would have told the GOP that for purely technical reasons it was going to be almost impossible to deliver on the promise it made in its Pledge to America to cut $100 billion from the federal budget this year.

That's why it was anything but a surprise when, as Jackie Calmes noted in yesterday's New York Times, on the first day they formally took control of the House of Representatives Republicans did what every fiscal technician knew was inevitable: They announced that they were not going to cut domestic discretionary spending to 2008 levels as they repeatedly said they would do.

Back in April, I wrote about New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine's "testicular fortitude" when he announced a 2009 budget that proposed tp reduce spending below the previous year by eliminating three whole departments and 5000 jobs.  I was, and continue to be, extremely impressed with what Corzine proposed.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear as if New Jersey voters are as impressed.  Since he proposed the budget, Corzine's approval ratings have dropped steadily and the primary reason appears to be the spending cuts he proposed.

The irony is that a previous New Jersey governor, Jim Florio, was bounced from office in 1993 partly because he dared to propose tax increases.  Florio then lost the Democratic nomination to Corzine in 2000 when he tried to run again.