Trade offs in budget bill

[No Elephants]

As we all know, "defense" spending has not suffered much in the sequester (despite bs to the contrary in the AP story below) but was due for cuts in 2014. Not to worry, though. The WH and Congress have spared the security/surveillance state, so we can all rest easy. And we should all be grateful that both of the largest political parties were able to agree on something, anything.

Jan 14, 3:30 AM EST

Dozens of trade-offs in $1.1 trillion budget bill

By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press



WASHINGTON (AP) -- The sales job is on for a bipartisan $1.1 trillion spending bill that would pay for the operations of government through October and finally put to rest the bitter budget battles of last year.

The massive measure contains a dozens of trade-offs between Democrats and Republicans as it fleshes out the details of the budget deal that Congress passed last month. That pact gave relatively modest but much-sought relief to the Pentagon and domestic agencies after deep budget cuts last year.

The GOP-led House is slated to pass the 1,582-page bill Wednesday, though many tea party conservatives are sure to oppose it.

<snip>

The bill would avert spending cuts that threatened construction of new aircraft carriers and next-generation Joint Strike Fighters. It maintains rent subsidies for the poor, awards federal civilian and military workers a 1 percent raise and beefs up security at U.S. embassies across the globe. The Obama administration would be denied money to meet its full commitments to the International Monetary Fund but get much of the money it wanted to pay for implementation of the new health care law and the 2010 overhaul of financial regulations.

"This agreement shows the American people that we can compromise, and that we can govern," said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. "It puts an end to shutdown, slowdown, slamdown politics."

<snip>

The measure doesn't contain in-your face victories for either side. The primary achievement was that there was an agreement in the first place after the collapse of the budget process last year, followed by a 16-day government shutdown and another brush with a disastrous default on U.S. obligations. After the shutdown and debt crisis last fall, House Budget committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., struck an agreement to avoid a repeat of the 5 percent cut applied to domestic agencies last year and to prevent the Pentagon from absorbing about $20 billion in new cuts on top of the ones that hit it last year.

White House budget director Sylvia Mathews Burwell says the measure is a "positive step" because it "unwinds some of the damaging cuts caused by sequestration, ensures the continuation of critical services the American people depend on, and brings us closer to returning the budget process to regular order." She also praised investments in early childhood education and infrastructure.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BUDGET_BATTLE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-01-14-03-30-54


Democrats are happy about fixing roads? Sorry, don't Republicans use roads? Don't many in construction vote Republican?


Even though the Republicans promised a 72 hour review period, they will be passing this one in less time. That should tell us how much they hate it.

Meanwhile, in other news, yet another story about waste by the Pentagon. http://www.reuters.com/video/2013/11/14/reuters-tv-billions-in-pentagon-spending-down-a-bla?videoId=274544480&videoChannel=117777

Not sure what the point of this kind of story is. Journalists have been doing them for decades, but they don't seem to have much impact. T(Though, when I was in Bermuda, the tour guide did mention that a news story had resulted in closings of US military bases in Bermuda that were called the Club Med of the military.

http://www.bermuda-online.org/milquit.htm

(To be fair, though, Bermuda never went Communist.)

When was the last time you read about massive waste at food banks or homeless shelters?