Both WaPo and the National Journal are reporting that the advertised $38.5 billion in spending cuts agreed to in the budget deal are not real. WaPo calls many of the cuts “accounting gimmicks.” The National Journal has this to say,
“The specifics show that finding nearly $40 billion in cuts during the 2011 fiscal year required clever accounting and, for the White House, a willingness to concede on rhetoric to find gains on substance. For example, the final cuts in the deal are advertised as $38.5 billion less than was appropriated in 2010, but after removing rescissions, cuts to reserve funds and reductions in mandatory spending programs, discretionary spending will be reduced only by $14.7 billion.”
Here’s a specific example from the WaPo piece:
“The legislation includes $4.9 billion from the Justice Department’s Crime Victims Fund, for instance, but that money is in a reserve fund that wasn’t going to be spent this year. Crime victims would receive no less money than they did before the deal.”
That $4.9 billion represents nearly 13% of the total so-called cuts in the deal.
Also included in the “deal” are the elimination of four policy czars. The ruse? The positions are vacant and, according to National Journal, have already been phased out by the White House. And those cuts from mandatory programs that comprised $17.5 billion of the $38.5 billion? They can be “made up” in next year’s budget.
Some liberals and Democrats are lauding the President for ceding more rhetoric than cash to the Republicans, while Republicans are spinning that this serves as a beginning to implementing their agenda for spending cuts in the future. What is really going on though is that Washington politicians from both sides of the aisle are once again using smoke and mirrors, accounting gimmicks, and insincere rhetoric to hoodwink the American people.
Contributor, aka tidbits. Retired attorney in complex litigation, death penalty defense and constitutional law. Former Nat’l Board Chair: Alzheimer’s Association. Served on multiple political campaigns, including two for U.S. Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR). Contributing author to three legal books and multiple legal publications.