Shutdown-Averting 'Budget Package' Actually Increases Spending This Year

Last November, the Teabaggers won the House for the Republicans, which meant government spending and all post-18th century bureaucracy was gone forever, yay. Except, that big budget deal that saved us all from government shutdown? It's going to make the government spend more money this year than if spending had just been left alone, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But that's because of defense spending, which shouldn't count, as there can never be too much defense spending. Republicans are still on track to erase Washington, D.C. and its suburbs from the map, right?

Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), explains on the Speaker's blog "The effect on outlays (based on how quickly the administration spends money) meanwhile is slowed due to increased and accelerated spending for our men and women in uniform. As the CBO puts it, 'part of the reason ...is that some defense funding was shifted from slower-spending to faster-spending activities.'"

See, "our men and women in uniform" needed very, very new weapons, because they have to face off against the world's technological behemoth: individuals who live in caves and holes in the ground in third-world countries. Makes sense. [ TPM ]