How to tell what bill will cut spending

Guest poster J Howard at Protein Wisdom has a new post up:

CATO: "Boehner's New Plan Doesn't Cut Spending" [JHoward]

I'll leave you to go read the original post for it's insights, but I do want to highlight a couple of the comments.

Hrothgar posted on 7/28 @ 6:43 pm

Any "cut" that does not decrease the spending in the 2011 budget below that of the 2010 budget is a lie.
Any "cut" that does not decrease the spending in the 2012 budget below that of the 2011 budget is a lie.
Any "cut" that is scheduled to occur in any of the 2013-2021 budgets is a lie.

newrouter posted on 7/28 @ 6:22 pm

If we JUST CAPPED SPENDING– spent the same amount next FY as we did this FY,

the CBO would score that as a $9.5 trillion dollar cut.

So before anyone can claim we're "cutting" anything, the number they are talking about has to exceed $9.5 trillion.