Catch of the Day

Via Weigel, here's Jamie Dupree:

One other note from last week's budget debate - when the week began, the GOP bill had $60.8 billion in cuts.  When the week ended, that number was just over $61.4 billion.

Dupree's post also has a nice preliminary analysis of the Republicans who voted against deeper cuts. The bottom line here is pretty obvious: there's really nothing more to squeeze out of non-defense discretionary spending. That is, even if the extra $22 billion that 92 Republicans (and House Democrats) opposed had passed...well, $22B isn't much in federal budget terms. Already, the current GOP cuts include items that Republicans also claim they want to increase...there's just nothing significant left in that pot.

To me, that just is a reminder that when American say they want a smaller government overall but also say that they want more spent on virtually every individual program, what's probably really operative is the latter.

Anyway: nice catch!