Don’t you love it❓Debt limit deal?

Government negotiating with itself has interesting, but not unexpected outcomes. What appears to be generally isn’t, savings aren’t really as claimed and playing the timing game is paramount. Oh yes, it all must look good to voters on both sides.

The way administration officials see it, the full final agreement’s spending cuts are nothing worse than they would have expected in regular appropriations bills passed by a divided Congress. They agreed to structure the cuts so they appeared to save $1.5 trillion over a decade in the eyes of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. But thanks to the side deals — including some accounting tricks — White House officials estimate that the actual cuts could total as little as $136 billion over the two enforceable years of the spending caps that are central to the agreement.

New York Times 6-3-23