patrick.net

The agreement, announced jointly by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), will almost surely face vehement opposition from far-right House Republicans, who had hoped to force steep budget cuts.

That means Johnson caved like a Spelunker. If he got anything like a half-assed deal, WaPo the MIC Paper would be screeching with rage, saying the deal would be torpedoed and that only a far-right extremist could vote for it.

Breaking it down, the deal sets aside $886.3 billion for defense spending, $772.7 billion in domestic discretionary spending, and rescinds $6.1 billion in coronavirus emergency spending authority. The deal also accelerates $20 billion in cuts from the $80 billion IRS funding allocated under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/speaker-johnson-announces-166-trillion-bipartisan-package-avert-shutdown

The 2021, pre "Inflation Act" IRS Budget was under $12B. The Inflation act added $80B to the IRS budget over the years. $20B in "Cuts" is only slowing the rate of massive growth of the IRS set by the Inflation Act. It doesn't negate the Dem-Biden 2022 overfunding.
https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/266/19.-IRS-FY-2021-BIB.pdf

According to a Sunday "Dear Colleague" letter, the topline deal - which mostly adheres to a deal reached between the White House and former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), limits discretionary spending to $1.66 trillion overall. It also secures $16 billion in additional spending cuts vs. the McCarthy deal, and is around $30 billion less than what Senate Democrats wanted.

...
"This represents the most favorable budget agreement Republicans have achieved in over a decade," wrote Johnson,

$16B is about a quarter of 1% of the budget. The best deal in a decade by Republicans is a bar so high, a Parkison's sufferer could easily navigate it.

The insane post-COVID budgets. The DC Plan is to make $6T budgets the new normal.



Back to 2019 or bust.

If it's not a double digit % cut, it's not serious.

AmericanKulak says

The best deal in a decade by Republicans is a bar so high

Look at how they are reducing spending increases. The Republicans have a budget that is less than $30 billion than the Senate Democrats requested.

The Republicans are at least growing the budget below the inflation rate. This is still a victory as far as at least controlling spending.

ad says

$30 billion

$30B is what % of $6T?

It's time to think big.

ad says

AmericanKulak says

The best deal in a decade by Republicans is a bar so high

Look at how they are reducing spending increases. The Republicans have a budget that is less than $30 billion than the Senate Democrats requested.

The Republicans are at least growing the budget below the inflation rate. This is still a victory as far as at least controlling spending.

Except that because of Biden's inflation, the interest on the debt has increased by about $500-600 billion per year because of higher interest rates. This is part of the "non-discretionary" spending. The MSM,. politicians, Treasury Department etc. DO NOT want anyone to even look at this cluster-fuck.

The deficit is SKYROCKETING ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Misc says

The deficit is SKYROCKETING ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Who is actually gonna pay it? I don't think anyone that hasn't run credit checks on tenants realize that 80-90% of people don't pay on some form of debt. You don't have to. It's a business transaction. Student loans are the only bitch. Otherwise once they sell the debt to a debt collector it's over. The creditor has been paid. I don't think people get this.

Thing is our government is the debt collector and creditor. Who do they answer to? No one. We have the assets to back up the debt for the foreseeable future. No one can collect because we could just blow them up. We need to bring the manufacturing back here and the deficit and debt is a joke. People will laugh 10 years from now. Trump would be better, but I'm not biased, Biden's CHIP act has and will be beneficial and hopefully avoid war with China. The rest of the ongoing conflicts he's been a complete dip shit.

Misc says

The deficit is SKYROCKETING ! ! ! ! ! ! !

We will end up like Greece!

WookieMan says

Otherwise once they sell the debt to a debt collector it's over. The creditor has been paid

On pennies to the dollar.

Back from 2009 to 2017 there were complaints of how US Treasuries were providing a real return of no more than 0%. Certificate of Deposits were paying shit also.

The low interest environment helped the federal government to avoid a debt crisis as the debt to GDP ratio increased from around 60% to 107% during Obama's terms. Back then annual inflation averaged less than 2%.

Now it is around 120% and it seems with higher inflation that the government is inflating out of a debt crisis.

We'll see how debt to GDP ratio fares by this late summer.

Good post Patrick, as I've been tracking "non discretionary" spending as far as Social Security and Medicare to explain the rate of increase of total budget of the federal government and comparing to what data is available as far as demographic trends

The Congressional Democrat website published its 2024 budget which calls for about a 5.2% annual increase in total spending, yet government reported inflation is only around 3.2%

That tells me they want to keep discretionary spending at their traditional or legacy levels, instead of figuring out how to get total spending just below the inflation rate for a few consecutive years.

.

AD says

Back from 2009 to 2017 there were complaints of how US Treasuries were providing a real return of no more than 0%. Certificate of Deposits were paying shit also.

The low interest environment helped the federal government to avoid a debt crisis as the debt to GDP ratio increased from around 60% to 107% during Obama's terms. Back then annual inflation averaged less than 2%.

Now it is around 120% and it seems with higher inflation that the government is inflating out of a debt crisis.

We'll see how debt to GDP ratio fares by this late summer.

Treasury Dept just had its best T Bill auction since 2007. 30 yr bonds!

Patrick says

Lol. I paid my fair share. Just under that amount. Not including other federal, state and local income taxes... Fuck a horse god fuck...

The DoD has "lost" more than the entire US GDP.

Where did all that money go?

https://nitter.poast.org/MikeBenzCyber/status/1858012798850158993#m

If true they better have a fleet of space ships, secret moon base, and we really created a working star wars program in the 80s to show it went to something. If not all that are involved no mater their age or position need to be hung for all to see.

Allegedly, the money went into the black budget secret space program exploring advanced physics technology (not the clunky shit from Einstein used as a brick wall physics meme distraction).

NASA is a kind of retro techno movie set to hide the real doings of anti-gravity, interdimensional beings, and rapid space travel. They're Nazis, so anybody getting close to the exotic tech they just kill, but we have a taste of it from lasers, fiber optics, and the extraordinary tech advancements since WWII. That seems to be the black hole where all those trillions go. Greedy fucking secretive fucks who want to hold and squander the granted high technologies for themselves.

Who has seen or read "Man in the High Castle"?

It's a very simple explanation.

They've lost a few hundred nukes.

Black budget for sure as Ceffer says. There were probably leaks for the Manhattan project but no one at that time saw nukes coming.

I just think it’s already in front of our faces. Space X. Could easily attach conventional explosives by a magnitude of 10. Think the recent Beruit port explosion.

There would be no nuclear fall out. You don’t destroy the entire rocket. It then makes nukes impossible to use. You can test with no concern. We already have the MOAB but if we could demonstrate obliterating a city the nuke game is over. Much cheaper too though still expensive. Not as much as nukes.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/safe-but-risky-saturday-may-3-2025

Yesterday, CNN ran a story headlined, “Trump budget proposes $1 trillion for defense, slashes education, foreign aid, environment, health and public assistance.” Democrats were, predictably, outraged.

“Budget” —a word evoking fiscal restraint— has always been a strange term to describe what are really federal spending plans. And the President’s budget is even odder, since Congress actually drafts the annual spending plan. So President Trump’s “budget” is more of a suggestion or recommendation, a description of presidential priorities for areas to spend money on or to cut.

In reality, it described how to make much of Trump’s first 100 days’ progress permanent.

This budget blueprint would increase defense and border budgets, fund MAHA, preserve Social Security and Medicare, and suggest permanent cuts to various agencies the Trump team has already targeted for destruction. It would cut the State Department’s foreign aid budget by an eye-watering -84%, slash Biden’s green energy programs, like his failed $40B electric charger network, wither National Science Foundation spending by -56%, eliminate four entire NIH departments (for minority health, nursing research, global health and integrative health, whatever that is), and memory-hole more than a dozen smaller agencies, some of which the administration is already busily dismantling.

If Congress complies, the ashcanned agencies would include crowd favorites like: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (NPR/PBS), AmeriCorps, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the ‘400 Years of African American History Commission,’ the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, the Job Corps, and the US Institute of Peace.

In addition to ensuring DOGE cuts are made permanent, the cuts are also intended to offset an extension of the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts, and fulfill several of Trump’s tax-related campaign promises, like ending taxes on tips and Social Security payments— which would immediately increase payments to people receiving Social Security.

No tax on tips and that immediate increase in Social Security payments would be brilliant moves politically.

zzyzzx says

We will end up like Greece!

Greece is more than twice as bad as the USA for debt, and the way Trump is governing, I would not be surprised if the debt to GDP ratio drops from currently around 120% back to mid 2016 levels of 100%

https://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html

.

Patrick says

No tax on tips and that immediate increase in Social Security payments would be brilliant moves politically.

Most people are afraid of credit and don't use the points game. Tips are 80% cash and no one claims them anyway. So it's not a big savings for most. I think it's a good thing, but not a huge game changer.

WookieMan says

Patrick says
No tax on tips and that immediate increase in Social Security payments would be brilliant moves politically.

Most people are afraid of credit and don't use the points game. Tips are 80% cash and no one claims them anyway. So it's not a big savings for most. I think it's a good thing, but not a huge game changer.

That is not the case in a lot of establishments in Panama City Beach like Back Beach Barbecue. They collect the tips and distribute them among the workers.

And a large majority of tips in Panama City Beach are by credit card.

.

AD says

WookieMan says

Patrick says
No tax on tips and that immediate increase in Social Security payments would be brilliant moves politically.

Most people are afraid of credit and don't use the points game. Tips are 80% cash and no one claims them anyway. So it's not a big savings for most. I think it's a good thing, but not a huge game changer.

That is not the case in a lot of establishments in Panama City Beach like Back Beach Barbecue. They collect the tips and distribute them among the workers.

And a large majority of tips in Panama City Beach are by credit card.

.

Not denying that, but most men in my region, including Chicago pay with cash. My buddy wouldn't bet on the Kentucky Derby today because he was worried about fraud and someone stealing his number. He usually hauls around $500-1k cash.

Not everyone carries that much, I maybe have $20-50 on me. I don't gamble. I haven't been to a cash only establishment in ages and if it is there's an ATM. So I eat some fees, whatever. $100 in fees in a year is an hour of work if that. I can get paid $8k-10k in points tax free with the CC.

I will pay with CC's and tip with cash as well to help the person out. No one claims wages on cash tips unless they're retarded. So this doesn't impact all that many people outside of CC payment that has to be reported.

AD says

And a large majority of tips in Panama City Beach are by credit card.

Even if the tips are cash, not everyone is a crook and actually do report them. Also, if someone is a waitress who is paid less than min wage with the caveat that tips will bring the wage up to min wage, the employer will have strict requirements to document this. There is also the issue with "allocated" tips, where tips are assigned (guessed at) based on work hours.

HeadSet says

Even if the tips are cash, not everyone is a crook and actually do report them.

Don't know a single server that reports cash tips. Same with a hair dresser. Or other similar service jobs that get tipped. The employer doesn't see cash tips. So they can't report anything, unless your state has some law. Hours suck, but I know servers and bartenders making $150k a year most of it tax free.

I like the idea for places like Chilis, BWW, Applebee's, etc where CC's are used more often. I'll use a card, but to throw the server a bone I try to tip in cash. You report $400/yr on your 1040, the IRS gives no shits. You pay $25 in taxes if that. My wife did this during our college years. She'd work Easter and make $500 for a 6 hour shift. Mothers day another $500. The employer doesn't report anything because they put the cash in their pocket.

Also the employer takes cash out of the safe as well. Restaurants specifically have low margins, but if you can take cash, they look a whole hell of a lot better. You can have a losing year on paper and still pay yourself in cash. Just don't go to credit only businesses. Not hard.