Republicans Meager $61 Billion in Spending Cuts Nearly Eaten Up by Bad Stimulus Math

More bad news coming out of Washington. Washington is the only place I know that can pass a bill that authorized a specific amount of money to be spent in appropriations and nearly every time cost overruns take place and for some reason its acceptable. Take for instance Obama's stimulus. When Democrats in Congress passed the stimulus bill, it was supposed to appropriate around $780 billion dollars.

A few months later we find out that number is more, and today in the Wall Street Journal, we discover that it's actually $34 billion more than what Congress approved.

Now before we get into the other part of this equation, notice where unemployment sits--10% officially unemployed (and there are more whose benefits have run out) and 20% underemployed. The Wall Street Journal writes:

And the economic boost from the added government spending is beginning to wear off, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a new report Wednesday. The CBO said that in the final three months of 2010, the stimulus was paying to keep between 1.3 million and 3.5 million people in jobs, both down from the peak recorded in the prior three-month period.

The drop was expected, since the biggest chunk of stimulus money was spent out during fiscal year 2010, which ended Sept. 30.

We got little bang for the buck in other words as unemployment numbers have not gone down and are expected to go down anytime soon. Now let's put the Republicans into this mix.

They promised us a meager $100 billion in spending cuts, and they delivered only $61 billion. News today of the stimulus using $34 billion more than was originally appropriated turns this $61 billion to even a smaller number. Over half of the Republicans spending cuts have been eaten up by bad stimulus math performed by the federal government.