As noted earlier, Politico's David Rogers went deep into the weeds in order to try to explain the details of the suddenly controversial continuing resolution (CR). I wrote that the analysis is "a little" confusing, but a smart person writes in to call it "utterly incomprehensible." Let's try to cut through the confusion one more time.
H.R. 1 was the original Republican budget that passed in February. It was supported by the Tea Party. It had $68 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary spending. Only 26 percent of those cuts ($18 billion) would occur during the 2011 fiscal year.
The C.R. agreed to by Boehner, Reid, and Obama has $42 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary spending. Only 20 percent ($8.2 billion) would occur during the 2011 fiscal year.
(So why does the CBO come up with its report that only $352 million is cut from the 2011 budget? Because defense outlays go up.)
The question then for conservatives: If H.R. 1 was good enough, then why is the CR a charade? Both measures cut only a small amount this year.
Obviously most people (including me!) didn't understand these (confusing) details before yesterday. Is that because Republicans did a bad job communicating? Or did the press--including the blogosphere--do a bad job of understanding and explaining the deal?
I think the answer is "yes" to both questions.