First Posted: 04/12/11 04:27 PM ET Updated: 04/12/11 04:45 PM ET
Last week’s near shutdown of the government occurred because we were supposedly having an intensely “serious” discussion about reducing the federal deficit. But when you look at both the components of the deal that were agreed to, as well as some of the matters that were on the table, it’s hard to take these claims of seriousness very seriously. As you already know, a lot of the eleventh hour debate concerned Planned Parenthood — an issue that related more to pure partisan antipathy than to a serious attempt to save taxpayers money. That’s not it, though. There’s a slew of things in the deal, or in the discussion of it, that just have nothing to do with cutting the deficit. In fact, there’s a fair amount of things that would actually add to the deficit. Below are eight prime examples, including a note on whether they made it into the final agreement or not. 1. Budget Gimmicks Galore! The $38 billion in cuts is already being reported as the largest single deficit reduction measure in history. But as the Associated Press reports today, both sides of the negotiating table indulged in a slew of budget tricks to arrive at that top line figure:
STATUS: These tricks are part of how the deal’s top-line figure was achieved. 2. Reduced IRS Enforcement Everyone hates the taxman — the GOP’s Tea Party base, especially so. But in cutting a proposed increase in the budget for Internal Revenue Service enforcement, Republicans who pushed for the reduction were essentially calling for a straight up loss in revenue:
I thought everyone wanted to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. Tax scofflaws are apparently not part of that equation. And the people who are primarily cheated by tax evaders are, of course, everyone who pays their fare share. STATUS: The current agreement froze funding for the IRS. 3. No “Free Choice” in Obamacare Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been doing a lot of unheralded work in taking the good faith opposition to the president’s Affordable Care Act and crafting some compromise measures that might preserve the bill and enhance its standing with the GOP. One such provision is his Free Choice Voucher, which he described as a “foothold for choice and competition and a safety valve for Americans whose employers are already forcing them to bear more and more of their family’s health insurance costs.” As part of the appropriations deal, the vouchers were unceremoniously killed off. As Matt Yglesias notes: “We don’t really know who killed it, but it doesn’t have any meaningful budgetary impact so it’s not like this was a concession made in order to reach some target cut figure.” This move has nothing at all to do with budgetary concerns, it’s just straight up hate for the Affordable Care Act. Ron Wyden has more here. STATUS: Killed off. 4. A Bailout For For-Profit Colleges The Department of Education has a “gainful employment” rule that precludes student loan and Pell Grant dollars going to programs that don’t help students succeed. But a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House, acting as lackeys for the for-profit college industry, pushed for a rider that would prevent those accountability rules from going in to place, allowing profits (and loan defaults) to continue. HuffPost’s Chris Kirkham explains:
And a crucial drain on government revenues. STATUS: Good news: “The final deal will not include a measure that would have prevented the Obama administration from cracking down on certain schools,” Kirkham reports. 5. Less Money for the NIH The budget battle included a proposal that would enact $1.6 billion of proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health, which performs vital health research. As Choire Sicha points out: “It turns out that when legislators actually know what the NIH does, they want to give it more money, not less.” What’s more, the federal investment in the NIH offers a staggeringly high rate of return:
STATUS: In the final agreement, the $1.6 billion figure was reduced to $260 million. 6. Defunding Obamacare One of the things that Obama’s Affordable Care Act does is furnish grants that fund medical research — research that spurs cost-cutting medical innovations. Let’s consider one example,via Rick Ungar at Forbes:
As the article goes on to relate, a South Carolina vascular surgeon named Steven Cull came up with an idea: “A valve that would close off the blood flow through the tube except for when the patient is undergoing the dialysis treatment,” as Ungar describes it. The potential upside? “Should the valve work, it would effectively end the complications that are costing the Medicare program $15 billion a year,” he writes. Go read the whole thing to get the full story of how Cull had to battle his way around Tea Party hero Jim DeMint, the junior Sen. from S.C., to finally secure funding under the Affordable Care Act. The bottom line is that defunding the implementation of these sorts of grant programs keeps deficits unnecessarily high.STATUS: As part of the agreement, GOP legislators will be allowed to hold a separate vote on defunding the Affordable Care Act. 7. Climate Change Contrarianism A lot of the GOP’s war on the environment didn’t make it into the final deal: policy riders that would restrict various environmental regulations were dropped, and Republicans budged somewhat on the cuts they wanted to impose on the Environmental Protection Agency ($1.6 billion, down from $3 billion). But they continue to deny the existence of climate change, and cuts reflecting that belief made it into the bill. Per The Hill:
The upshot? Over the long run, this could cost the government a lot of money. As Christine W. McEntee warned before the budget deal, these cuts “will limit access to a wide array of scientific data and information about climate, extreme weather events and seasonal forecasting, including the ability to leverage international knowledge and research, all of which could help inform mitigation and adaptation strategies worldwide.” Here are a few of the items potentially affected by the budget deal:
STATUS: These climate research funding reductions are part of the agreed-to deal. 8. Cuts To Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention Programs As a part of the final deal, HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, and STD prevention takes a $1.1 billion hit. That’s too bad because, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention writes, this has long been shown to have a high rate of return for the investment:
STATUS: Cut in the negotiated deal. The list could go on to include $78 million cut from research on health costs, quality and outcomes or $9 million taken from the Department of Energy Inspector General’s office. The Energy Innovation Fund, Energy Efficiency Grants, and Green Jobs Innovation Fund are also being slashed. None of these moves exactly scream, “This has potential to pay off handsomely for taxpayers or contribute mightily to deficit reduction.” But these sorts of measures — ones that fail to impact the overall budget picture or, worse, threaten to spur deficit increases — seem be hardwired into the deal, not bugs. All this was supposed to be part of a serious discussion to reduce the national debt? Could have fooled me! Ryan Grim, Corbin Hiar, and Nick Wing contributed to this report. Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips totv@huffingtonpost.com — learn more about our media monitoring project here.
