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The Spectacle Blog
As I write this it is difficult to hear myself think over the sound of congressional Republicans high-fiving each other over the debt ceiling deal.
There is no evidence that this bizarre deal of questionable constitutionality (e.g. the “Super Congress”) will actually lead to any real cuts. Nor is there any evidence that it will prevent the U.S. government from losing its long held triple-A credit rating.
There is a promise of spending cuts, but overall federal spending will continue on its upward trajectory because Official Washington operates in the make-believe world of “baseline budgeting.” According to this crackhead accounting, both a cut and an increase may count as cuts.
Confused? You’re supposed to be.
As Americans for Prosperity reminds us
This deal includes only $0.9 trillion in guaranteed cuts and in a best case scenario envisions an additional $1.5 trillion in cuts. And these are Washington cuts, not real cuts; they merely reduce the expected rate of increase in spending, while the federal government will continue to grow.
By “Washington cuts” as opposed to “real cuts,” AFP is referring to this strange beast known as baseline budgeting.
Baseline budgeting allows politicians to pretend to reduce expenditures while they actually boost expenditures. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) “defines the baseline as a benchmark for measuring the budgetary effects of proposed changes in federal revenue or spending, with the assumption that current budgetary policies or current services are continued without change,” explains another excellent group, Citizens Against Government Waste.
“The baseline includes automatic adjustments for inflation and anticipated increases in program participation. Baseline, or current services, budgeting, therefore builds automatic, future spending increases into Congress’s budgetary forecasts.”
So if the federal budget is slated under the rules of baseline budgeting to rise $1 trillion but it rises only $750 billion, CBO can claim there has been a “cut” of $250 billion.
The trillions of dollars in “cuts” that Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid now speak of are in reality reductions only in projected spending. In other words, they are fiction. Congress could decide to do them or not and even if lawmakers do them, they’re still not actual cuts.
Some defenders of special interests go even farther.
When I was a reporter in the D.C. bureau of The Bond Buyer newspaper, I regularly had run-ins with analysts at the left-wing Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
I remember writing an article in early 2004 that illustrates the cognitive dissonance that some in Washington are capable of.
At that time President Bush proposed appropriating $16.9 billion in Section 8 housing voucher subsidies for fiscal 2005, which was higher than the $16.4 billion appropriated in fiscal 2004.
A sane person would look at the two figures and conclude that $16.9 billion was $500 million more than $16.4 billion.
But the leftists at the CBPP argued that after taking into account inflation and other factors, the $16.9 billion would have been a funding cut.
Instead of being honest and saying that the $500 million wasn’t enough of an increase, CBPP analysts lied, claiming the increase was a cut.
Official Washington radiates entitlement and that ugly sentiment shows no signs of abating anytime soon.
* * * * *
America needs to know that ACORN is restructuring in time to help re-elect President Obama in 2012. Obama used to work for ACORN and represented the group in court as its lawyer. These radical leftists who use the brutal, in-your-face, pressure tactics of Saul Alinsky want to destroy America as we know it and will use any means to do it.
Buy my book Subversion Inc. at Amazon and in Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million bookstores. Visit the Subversion Inc. Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter.
View all comments (17) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Matthew Vadum
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/08/01/official-washingtons-crackhead
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Michael L. Hauschild| 8.1.11 @ 6:56PM
Thanks, honesty is welcome. Analytical honesty, is honestly refreshing.
R Martin| 8.1.11 @ 7:35PM
Base line budgeting may result in make-believe cuts, but the money to fund the base line's growth is real and so is the debt added to produce that money.
Dixie Pixie| 8.1.11 @ 7:40PM
The text of the House Bill is here:::
http://rules.house.gov/Media/f.....16_xml.pdf
Dixie Pixie| 8.1.11 @ 7:46PM
A good summery of the bill is here::::
http://www.politico.com/news/s.....60380.html
Clint| 8.1.11 @ 8:28PM
The Big Government Ruling Elite Have Played The Voters For Suckers Again.
"Major ratings firms -- namely Standard & Poor's and Moody's -- have said even if the country raises the debt ceiling and doesn't default, there's a strong likelihood that the triple-A bond rating will be cut to double-A unless a budget can be crafted that results in $4 trillion in savings, the result of the massive debt load the country has accumulated in recent years. The nation's outstanding debt is more than $14 trillion.
A senior banking official told FOX Business that administration officials have provided guidance to them that even though a default is off the table, a downgrade "is a real possibility for no other reason than S&P and Moody's have to cover (themselves) since they've been speaking out on the debt cap so much."
Bob Grant| 8.1.11 @ 9:13PM
Thanks for the explanation on baseline budgeting. The American citizenry would be outraged if they realized what gimmickry these POS's in Washington use to collect and distribute wealth.
Unfortunately, they learn what they need to know from the likes of Scott Pelley, Brian Williams, and Wolf Blitzer.
Clint| 8.1.11 @ 9:50PM
Dr.Ron Paul,
" I cannot support the reported deal on raising the nation’s debt ceiling. I have never voted to raise the debt ceiling, and I never will.
“This deal will reportedly cut spending by only slightly over $900 billion over 10 years. But we will have a $1.6 trillion deficit after this year alone, meaning those meager cuts will do nothing to solve our unsustainable spending problem. In fact, this bill will never balance the budget. Instead, it will add untold trillions of dollars to our deficit. This also assumes the cuts are real cuts and not the same old Washington smoke and mirrors game of spending less than originally projected so you can claim the difference as a ‘cut’.”
“The plan also calls for the formation of a deficit commission, which will accomplish nothing outside of providing Congress and the White House with another way to abdicate responsibility. In my many years of public service, there have been commissions on everything from Social Security to energy policy, yet not one solution has been produced out of these commissions."
You Have Been Sold Out By The RINO-CINO GOP Ruling Elite Again & Again & Again.
The Tea Party Rebellion Is Here & Now.
Stand In Rebellion.
Bob Grant| 8.1.11 @ 9:59PM
Clint, I agree with alot of what you stand for but can you get beyond the bumper sticker slogans and give specific examples of what "stand in rebellion" mean?
Erling| 8.1.11 @ 10:24PM
Seems clear to me: throw ALL the bums out in '12, starting with your local GOP congressman and senator.
Glein| 8.1.11 @ 10:24PM
I have said over and over again on this site that the Republicans would once again roll over and play dead. Well they did and they handed Obama everything he wanted and more! Good job guys. Thanks for looking out for the country first and not your sorry, coward, elitist, self-righteous, power hungry selves. You just sold out your country. We are now doomed.
Bob Grant| 8.2.11 @ 7:00AM
Glein,
It appears we in the peanut gallery are quick to attack our newly elected patriots when they fall out of line but could it be that governing is a bit more difficult than what we are willing to concede?
Take Allen West for example. He was the Tea Party favorite two weeks ago until he voted for this fateful bill. Maybe he understood the ramifications of "standing strong". I'm not sure what that means anyway.
Maybe Mr. West was not convinced allowing the debt ceiling deadline to pass wouldn't cause financial calamity. This is a legitimate reason to vote for an imperfect bill.
The key for Tea Party success is to move forward without appearing reckless. They couldn't sufficiently make the case for standing strong and, therefore, support for an all-or-nothing bill deteriorated.
A lesson learned in this epic battle.
Matthew Vadum | 8.2.11 @ 9:18AM
The Tea Party made its case -- and well. Boehner was eager to sell out from the beginning. Don't be naive.
USSAlabama| 8.2.11 @ 10:57AM
Boehner is a full-fledged member of the DC elite. Anyone surprised by a sell-out IS naive.
Who here is recruiting new members for Congress? Or are you just focusing on what presidential nominee we may get?
Tea Party's everywhere need to be recruiting Congressional candidates full force right now.
There is no other way to end the routine lying that we have been getting from DC since modern times.
BTW -- with regard to Mathew's last paragraph -- Obama *wants* a downgrade. It is part of the plan.
You may think you are wide awake, but you need to get the sleep out of your eyes and smell the coffee. It stinks.
BriereBear| 8.15.11 @ 1:16PM
Handed everything Obama wanted? Come off your meds! If OUR president (I use capitals because too many people still refuse to accept him) received any of what he wanted, we wouldn't have had a downgrade. A tax increase for the well-to-do would have been well-received in the financial markets.
Conservative Bob| 8.2.11 @ 9:58AM
Our problem is numbers.
The cuts were too small the debt increase was too large.
I think we the conservative grass roots were successful. We shaped the argument, we prevented tax hikes we connected cuts to the idea of increasing the ceiling. In very large numbers our freshmen held strong to principle. The ruling class vastly out number us but in spite of that we held them in check.
The biggest number working against us is the number of Dems who still hold seats in the house and senate, and the number of RINO ruling class statists in the GOP. Those are the numbers we must work to change every day between now and the next election.
We will achieve the level of spending reductions necessary to put the country back on its limited government coarse when we increase the number of principled conservative limited government representatives and senators.
Think how these battles will go when there are 50 more in the house and 20-30 more in the senate. Think how bad this would have gone had they not been there.
No one said this was going to be a quick easy fight, take encouragement in what we were able to achieve and press on. We have a long hard struggle ahead.
Sean| 8.2.11 @ 11:06AM
Our problem is that we elect Republicans to put an end to unbalanced budgets and about 80-90% turn out to vote like Democrats on spending.
USSAlabama| 8.2.11 @ 11:25AM
So stop just going to the polls and voting "R" --
Recruit candidates and commit to elect them regardless of elite incumbent outspending on campaigns.