is this the boehner plan? if not which bill is his plan so that i can read it?

You are confusing DEFICIT with SPENDING. They are not the same thing. Deficit is how in the red we are each year, not how much we are spending. Your argument says ‘spending’, but your numbers are taken from the ‘spending’ chart.

This is the right chart: usgovernmentspending.com

It shows that spending was stable under Reagan at 22%, went down with Clinton to 18%, than up a bit with Bush 2000-2008 to 20%, and then WAY WAY up when Bush passed the bank bail out (to 25%).

The only time spending was below 5% of GDP was at the start of the great depression, in 1930.

While I generally support the purpose of the bill, and some specific provisions, there are also some troubling provisions:

- Block additional approved borrowing by the Treasury, until such time as both the House and Senate agree to and first pass a Balanced Budget Amendment and it is sent to the states for ratification. Delay in the process could result in default.

- As worded, it gives extraordinary powers to the chairs of two committees as well as the Director of OMB.

- As worded, it ties the hands of future members of Congress when it prohibits future discussion or debate of decisions made now, even when the financial situation could change drastically down the road. I could certainly see requiring a super-majority, but prohibiting discussion and debate? What happened to freedom of speech? Democratic process? A dangerous approach to governance.

Thank you for your comment! I must have missed that even thought it’s extremely clear to see. Thanks!

Thanks for the note. Good to notice it, but all is correct, to the best of our knowledge. The specific vote was “On the Motion to Table (Motion to Table the Motion to Proceed to Consider H.R. 2560)”, so it is conceivable that the Dems voted in favor of tabling the bill. The data is consistent with the roll call info on GovTrack, our data partner. Send an email to donny at opencongress dot org if you’d like to confirm this interpretation. Thanks for using OC, bthockey.

I don’t get it. Are the votes on the Senate part of this bill on OpenCongress backwards? It is saying that all the Republicans voted against it and all the Democrats voted for it. uh?

Now, that the bill has been voted down by the senate, we can get the list of those that voted against it. Now we can work to get the ones out of office that speak of reform but double-face the issue at voting time. Regardless of the never ending numbers about how bad the budget and deficit are we all know that this has no good ending unless we get leaders that walk the walk. If you think the last election was historic just wait for the next one!

Ron Paul answered my question about why C4L supported this bill early on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UUR-gomIwqs

Essentially they were told it would contain big cuts, caps, and a balanced budget amendment but didn’t have the detials. They didn’t find out until later that there would be over 2 trillion added to the debt.

I’m glad it passed. It’s a reasonable compromise, the president gets one final increase in the debt ceiling, then there’s real limits on spending and a balanced budget amendment. Win-Win. If they don’t pass it in the senate expect a government shutdown.

18% is just to high and it can be changed by future votes. There is nothing here that locks the Government into a real set budget. As always there is double talk in this bill and the commitment to real change is not here. We need to cut the spending drastically and bite the bullet now.
“Trillion” is obviously not making a proper impression on most of these reps, and I guess not on the people either. We really can’t afford to raise a few more trillion in the next few years. We need real cuts and using Terror as grounds for not capping military spending is not smart. We will be in continual war forever with the definition of war as fighting Terror.
With Obama drawing down troops the military budget should be decreasing. Policing agencies have always fought terror, it is just easier to define and see at this time in history. We need to keep the military accountable on its spending and make sure it it wise about it as well.

Having gotten my previous comment out there, I hope this bill passes because it’s a step in the right direction, for once.

It’s actually a historical average. Not “low level” but not “massive” either.

See Forbes Magazine

QUOTE: “…with total spending at no more than 18% of GDP, a historically low level.” Excuse me? 18% is MASSIVE! Before 2008 we had not seen more than 6% since the Great Depression (see usgovernmentspending.com ). I oppose this bill, we need to cut and cap the ceiling at no more than 5% of GDP, anything over 10% is a full blown depression (like now). Write your rep and ask them to oppose this bill until it is capped at 5%. Anything higher is just entirely too dangerous to the national economy.