From the New York Times:
Representative David Dreier, Republican of California and chairman of the Rules Committee, said the House bill, promoted by Speaker John A. Boehner, “makes immediate, enormous cuts in federal spending.” The Congressional Budget Office found that the bill would save $22 billion next year and $42 billion in 2013 — at a time when the government is spending $3.7 trillion a year.
[Emphasis added]
Personally, I disapprove of just about any spending cuts with the economy in the state it's in. Keynes said something to the effect that it's better to have people shoveling dirt from one hole to another than to leave people unemployed and unpaid. Labor is a perishable commodity; we can't store it up and wait until it's most needed, we can't take today off and make it up in our retirement years. A day's work lost is lost forever.
Also, I'm heartbroken about the foolishness, short-sightedness, and just plain meanness of Congress's animosity towards student loans:
One of the few areas in which Mr. Boehner and Senator Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat and majority leader, agree is student aid. They both propose eliminating subsidized federal loans for students in graduate and professional schools — about 1.5 million borrowers who do not pay interest on their loans while they are in school. Graduate students could still take out unsubsidized loans. But interest would accrue during that time, so they would owe more to the government.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that this change would save $18 billion over 10 years.
[from the same NYT article]
Save $18 billion? I very much doubt it. I imagine it will cost the nation many more billions in shifted costs and lost productivity; don't we want people working and producing at the height of their ability as early as possible?
And reports are tonight that the Tea Partiers have been bought over for the zombie Boehner bill by promises to make drastic cuts to Pell grants! (According to the article, the Reid bill leaves them essentially untouched.)
All that said: these fictitious 10-year budgets cannot be enforced beyond the life of this Congress, so, of the x trillion in cuts, only the $22 billion in 2012 and the $42 billion in 2013 need be taken seriously. (And that's the Boehner bill which will be killed in the Senate an hour after the House passes it.)
Almost all the 'cuts' are scheduled for future years when future Congresses we elect can ignore them. I think that's good.