Competing Plans Emerge

Just a quick article offering a break down of the current competing plans:

Reid, Boehner Offering Competing Plans to Raise Debt Ceiling

In summary, Boehner offers the following:

• Immediately raise debt ceiling by one trillion dollars to avoid default. 
• Enact 1.2 trillion dollars worth of budget cuts now.
• Revisit the debt ceiling next year for another potential 1.6 trillion dollar increase.
• Enact at least an additional 1.8 trillion dollars in budget cuts.

Reid offers:

• Immediately raise the debt ceiling by 2.4 trillion dollars, pushing the debt ceiling off the political table until after the 2012 election cycle.
• Enact 2.7 trillion dollars worth of budget cuts now.

The democrats get one trillion of their savings from winding down Iraq and Afghanistan wars, $400 billion from reduced interest payments once that first trillion disappears, $40 billion from waste and fraud elimination, maybe $15 billion from cuts to agricultural subsidies, and around $15 billion of income from selling spectrum.  Boehner's first round of cuts are actually caps on future spending.  Both plans spread the cutting over ten years.

Cuts without really cutting anything.  Where's that Orsen Welles slow clap... here we go.