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.
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