This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, April 1st, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown. Federal spending is out of control, but if you think Tea Party-backed

Republicans are getting tough.

Think again.

Votes on spending cuts have routinely failed in this GOP controlled house and the prospects

for cutting even a paltry 61 billion out of the federal budget may be wishful thinking.

Tad Dehaven Budget Analysts at the Cato Institute comments.

When it comes to spending cuts, why does compromise always mean less or fewer dollars cut?

Well, I think what we're looking at right now is a political exercise.

I think that it's human nature that you have one number and somebody else wants a different number so you split the difference or at least that's the assumption that Democrats are operating under right now.

It's an interesting dynamic because John Boehner in the

House leadership and the Republican side find themselves in sort of a bind. They

realize that they were put into power by an electorate that was

hungry for substantial spending cuts. At the same time, they don't want a government

shutdown, they don't want to get blamed for it from an unsympathetic media and so they have to figure

out a way this would be Boehner he has to try and figure out a way to make an agreement make

it a deal with Democrats,

with that looking like a complete sellout.

And so that's why we've gone from $60 billion.

Now they're talking about $33 billion.

But let's step away from the 66 billion to 33 billion.

Certainly for most folks out there, that's a lot of money.

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