Some House GOPs have been making headlines today with a proposal to cut $2.5 trillion in spending.
Many Dems are complaining that it makes draconian cuts to programs like Energy Star or the National Endowment for the arts. However, what they are all missing is that the plan really only lists about $400 billion in specific cuts. The key to the $2.5 trillion total is this:
But the program eliminations and reductions would account for only $330 billion of the $2.5 trillion in cuts. The bulk of the cuts would come from returning non-defense discretionary spending – which is currently $670 billion out of a $3.8 trillion budget for the 2011 fiscal year – to the 2006 level of $496.7 billion, through 2021.
In other words, they haven't specified what they are going to cut at all. They've just slapped an arbitrary cap on the discretionary budget which is no different from saying, "We are going to balance the budget." It's the same thing we've been hearing for 10 years.
Update:
Here's another link that has a full list of the cuts. I especially like this one:
The legislation will further prohibit any FY 2011 funding from being used to carry out any provision of the Democrat government takeover of health care, or to defend the health care law against any lawsuit challenging any provision of the act. $80 billion savings
Of course they ignore the $230 billion cost of not implementing the law.