As previously noted here, however, more than half of that $2.7 trillion comes from winding down spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as savings from interest payments on debt that the government won’t have to pay since it will be borrowing less money. Which makes the Reid plan a little less scary. But what about the other half? We may not know the final shape of a debt ceiling deal, but it’s safe to say that whatever happens, the ultimate agreement will include at least $1.2 trillion in the “discretionary spending cuts” that were agreed to by both sides during the negotiations led by Vice President Biden. And if you look at the legislative language for both the Reid and Boehner bills, they include very similar language on discretionary spending limits.

But here is where it gets tricky. Because the cuts are not exactly what most people would think of as “cuts.” Discretionary spending authority — the amount government is allowed to spend each year — actually rises over the next 10 years. Under the Boehner plan, the 2021 cap is $1.234 trillion, or about $190 billion more than authorized for 2012. Under the Reid plan discretionary spending is capped at $1.228 trillion in 2021.

So you might well ask, if the amount that Congress is allowed to spend goes up each year, how can either side claim savings of a trillion dollars or more?

The answer: It’s all about the baseline.

Budget planners assume a baseline in which spending rises at the same rate as inflation. Under the Biden framework, spending increases are capped at a rate less than inflation. The exact percentage isn’t spelled out in the legislation, but one report pegged the spending cap at two-thirds the normal inflation rate.

“Savings” are calculated by subtracting what the government will spend with the cap in place from what the government would have spent if spending rose at the full inflation rate. Voilà! Spending, overall, continues to rise, even as a trillion or more dollars are “saved.”

As I contemplated these numbers, I began to understand, for the first time, the psychology of a House Republican freshman. The closer you look at the U.S. federal budget process, the more it all seems like chicanery. But just to make sure, I called up the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities to see if I could get a little more clarity.

Jim Horney, CBPP’s vice president for federal fiscal policy, argued that it is still “appropriate” to call the cap on spending authority a “cut,” for the simple reason that if you hold spending increases to under the inflation rate, the amount of goods and services that can be purchased with that spending is going to fall, since costs will be rising at the full rate of inflation.

Here are some examples of programs that fall under the category of “discretionary spending”:

The single largest non-defense discretionary program is the Veteran’s Health Administration, which delivers free and low-cost health care to more than 8 million veterans. The National Institutes of Health is also entirely supported by discretionary funding. So are the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the whole federal prison system. Federal aid to local school districts comes from the discretionary pot, as does the budget for the Food and Drug Administration. The National Park System operates because of discretionary funding, which puts it in the same company as the United States Coast Guard, the Transportation Safety Administration, and the Farm Service Agency.

I know some of my readers would be delighted to see the FBI, DEA and maybe even the whole federal prison system abolished. But if spending authority rises at two-thirds the rate of inflation for the next 10 years, school districts will be able to afford less heating, national parks will be forced to reduce hours and services, the NIH will be able to fund less research and veterans will get less healthcare — depending on how congressional appropriators allocate funding under the caps.

So the cuts are real — for the recipients.

But they’re also a numbers game. There’s a huge difference between a balanced budget or serious long-term deficit reduction and tweaks to discretionary spending caps based on inflation adjustments. And the more one learns how Congress plays this game, the more one understands why House Republicans are unwilling to endorse any compromise. And that leads us to an ugly conclusion: The better they grasp the numbers, the more determined they might be to drive us toward default.

I will take a closer look at how both the Reid and Boehner plans will impact ordinary Americans tomorrow morning. But for now, with Greenstein’s denunciation ringing in your ears, consider this: A significant number of House Republicans oppose the Boehner plan because it does not go far enough.

From the Washington Post:

But those hopes were dampened Monday by conservative opposition to the plan, highlighted by Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), who leads a conservative caucus of more than 170 GOP members. Jordan is one of 39 House Republicans who previously took a pledge vowing to increase the debt ceiling only in return for Congress sending to the states a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget.

The “Cut, Cap, and Balance Coalition” — another conservative group of House Republicans — also grumbled, in a statement released Monday, “expressing why the Speaker’s proposal does not meet the principles articulated in the Cut, Cap and Balance pledge”:

“As we stated this morning, Cut, Cap and Balance is not merely a legislative framework, it is a series of principles. Principles are not subject to negotiation. Unfortunately, the Speaker’s plan falls short of meeting these principles. Perhaps most troubling is the proposed Congressional Commission. History has shown that such commissions, while well-intentioned, make it easier to raise taxes than to institute enduring budget reforms. Additionally, a symbolic vote on a balanced budget amendment at some later time minimizes its importance, as it will not be tied to an increase in the debt ceiling. A BBA that allows a tax increase with anything less than a 2/3 supermajority is not a serious measure.”

Finally, The Hill reports that other House Republicans are upset that there aren’t sharp enough cuts to discretionary spending implemented immediately:

Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) debt-ceiling proposal would cut only $6 billion in discretionary spending for 2012, a figure that could cost him the support of conservatives who want larger reductions….

… On Monday night, freshman conservative stalwart Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) told The Hill that the amount of cuts for 2012 would be key to determining whether he can support the plan.

“I didn’t get a warm fuzzy feeling about it,” he said of the proposal as it was described to him by Boehner on Monday.

Is it really conceivable that conservatives would rebel against the Boehner plan because it’s too weak? It’s hard to imagine, but underestimating Tea Party conservativism is a fool’s venture. And Boehner definitely needs to keep his caucus together. One imagines he won’t be attracting more than a handful of Democratic votes for “the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.”

Meanwhile, John Boehner, the speaker of the House, gave his five-step “two-step” plan to famous shouty radio guy Rush Limbaugh, before he showed it to his own conference. (Of course, his conference is full of morons and extremists, many of whom wouldn’t have known what to think about Boehner’s plan until Uncle Rush explained it, so this was more shrewd than disrespectful.)

This is, obviously, a Bad Sign For America. Erick Erickson and Rush Limbaugh are, at best, entertainers — they’re certainly not policy experts — and at worst (and they are very often at their worst) they are extreme demagogues, stirring up shit for fun and attention, always more interested in tribal victory against their enemies on “the Left” than they are in governing, or doing anything at all to improve America beyond constantly crowing about how much better it used to be.

People like Erick and Rush were supposed to exist to keep the rubes occupied while the grown-ups sat down with various monied interests to design policy around what was best for oil companies and defense contractors. They are not supposed to be where the GOP base and congressional leadership get their political information and strategy.

But! But but but. Do you know what actually made me get a bit sputtery with rage yesterday? It was not this “Republicans cannot figure out how to tie their shoes without an asinine TV pundit and Clinton talk radio relic telling them it’s OK” business. I expect as much from the modern GOP. It was this Tweet, from Dave Weigel, that set my teeth on edge:

Ominous elevator chatter in Capitol today: “Did you read what Friedman wrote about whether we need a third party?”

Because yes, of course, Thomas Friedman is who the “sensible” ones are listening to.

Thomas Friedman, riding in, with Michael Bloomberg in tow, from Aspen, on the winged stallion of radical centrism, inventing a plan to fix ALL OUR PROBLEMS by misidentifying them and making the actual problems worse. Thomas Friedman’s Sunday column was dumber, somehow, than the last 1,500 identical columns he’s written on the same subject. Faced with a legislative system with too many veto points and a polarized national electorate regularly splitting their votes between the right-wing party and the incoherent party of “everyone else,” Friedman suggests that we elect a third-party president via Web poll. Yes!!! THAT WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING. Someone with no power base in either party, selected by Reddit users. Can’t you just imagine how President Maru the Box Cat would be able to cut through this “partisanship” and get things done with “leadership” from the “radical center”? This Web poll third party will be the Amazon.com of politics, in that it will kill the Borders of politics. (I think the Borders of politics, in this example, is the labor movement. Sorry!)

Right now you have a situation where the rank-and-file Republicans are listening to irresponsible extremists and the “serious” “grown-ups” hammering out “responsible” plans are listening to simple-minded dolts, like Thomas Friedman, with absolutely no understanding of how politics work.

I honestly do not know which one is worse. Friedman, probably, because at least Rush Limbaugh understands how to work to get his intended policy result enacted. His taxes have certainly gone down, as he’s gotten richer, since he started his talk radio racket. Friedman seems to think the problem with his “moderate politics of a center-left rich guy” platform is that there isn’t a party for it. Mr. Friedman, meet President Obama, of the Democratic Party! I know you hate partisanship, but that is the method by which President Obama is trying to create your flat global technocratic playground dream world!

Though if everyone who takes Thomas Friedman seriously did start their own third party, we at least would no longer have to worry about anyone who takes Thomas Friedman seriously getting elected to public office.

And it makes sense. House Republicans were getting some bad press for their reckless willingness to extract huge concessions by holding the debt ceiling and the nation’s credit-worthiness hostage. Lots of polling indicates that, outside of the Republican base, most Americans support compromise, and a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction that includes revenue increases as well as spending cuts. But no matter what Obama offered the GOP, Boehner could not agree to it, because any kind of a deal with the president would have the unbearable downside of making Obama look like a presidential problem-solver. And that would be an abomination.

But now, Boehner has managed to neatly extricate himself from this mess with a sudden, brilliant pivot: Obama is the problem. The key evidence: Obama’s oft-repeated call for a debt limit hike that will stretch into 2013 is just pure, selfish politics designed to maximize his chances for reelection.

Rush Limbaugh told his listeners on Monday that Boehner had called him earlier in the day to describe his new plan and declare that “I am not going to make a deal with someone who is more concerned with his election than he is for his country.”

Never mind the annoying little fact that a long-term extension of the debt ceiling is better for the country than a short-term hike. The ratings agencies have made it clear that American political dysfunction is a major contributing factor to the possibility of a sovereign credit downgrade. They want proof that Congress is committed to a long-term deficit reduction plan, and are unlikely to be thrilled at the prospect of a six- or nine-month band-aid. Wall Street wants this resolved, owners of Treasury debt want this resolved — heck, without any access to polling data whatsoever, I can confidently assert that most Americans would rather not go through this absurdity all over again within a year.

But Rush loves it, and I’m guessing the Republican base will love it too. In Rush’s world, the annoyance and mild anger that Obama displayed at his press conference on Friday is a welcome sign that the president is freaking out.

“I do think that he’s cracking up. I do think that he’s losing control here, ” said Limbaugh.

There’s more than a little bit of projection going on there, but who knows — Obama is scheduled to address the nation at 9 p.m. ET Monday night, and maybe we’ll all tune in to see the president collapse in gibbering rage.

That outcome strikes me as unlikely, but the truth is, Obama is in a tight spot. When one compares the Reid plan and the Boehner plan side by side, they turn out to be more alike than different. Both identify about $1 trillion in spending cuts that both sides have already agreed to. Both establish a 12-person blue ribbon panel to come up with future spending cuts. The crucial difference: The Reid plan adds another $1.7 trillion in cuts, the vast majority of which come from winding down spending on foreign wars and a reduction in interest payments on Treasury debt — and calls for an extension of the debt ceiling through 2013.

Republicans are already dismissing Reid’s accounting as a gimmick so it’s impossible to see the House giving in on the debt ceiling extension.  So what it all comes down to, at this juncture, is whether Obama will abandon his determination to get a long-term deal, or whether he is willing to go another round of chicken with the GOP.

If he does threaten to veto the House bill, then all of sudden, he’s the one holding the nation hostage. He’s the one preparing to risk a default. But if he gives in, then Republicans score a more or less complete victory. Obama gains no concessions on revenue, and will face the unpalatable prospect of fighting exactly the same battle all over again, early next year.

No wonder Rush Limbaugh is chortling.

This isn’t just me, right? If you have a big professional-looking document that says “TWO-STEP APPROACH” at the top, there should just be two steps listed, right? Who will hold John Boehner accountable for his crimes against numbers?

[Yes, this is all I have to say about the horrible nightmare that is the debt ceiling argument and America's forthcoming "The Road"-style age of "austerity." Go read Andrew Leonard if you want insightful and substantive and "actually knows what he's talking about" commentary!]