Budget Paring: One Step at a Time
If he keeps up that pace, Obama will next propose spending cuts in the range of $2.89 trillion.* Presto: We’re running a surplus.
Of course, that level of cutting ($2.89T) won’t happen, nor am I suggesting it should. Hell, the $17B might not happen; “every program has its patrons,” as the NYT article notes, paraphrasing “administration officials.”
Regardless, I’ll repeat the less-than-profound point I made a couple weeks ago, in the wake of that paltry $100M kerfuffle: Budget paring is a process, not a light switch.
I’m especially encouraged by this latest step in the process because it is based on “terminating or reducing 121 federal programs.” Read that again: It’s not just trimming that Obama is suggesting, but wiping out entire programs that have outlived their usefulness.
More of the same, please.
In the meantime, I’m curious to see how Cantor, McConnell, et. al., will manage to spin this “socialist” gesture. Wait for it … wait for it …
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* For the math impaired, $17B is 170 times greater than $100M; and $2.89T is 170 times greater than $17B.
6 Responses to “Budget Paring: One Step at a Time”
It's not a socialist gesture, rather it is an empty gesture. Cutting $17 B from a $3.55 T budget is laughable. It is like a family cutting their annual expenses by $500 when their cost of living is $100,000 per year. To put it in government terms, it is reducing the amount that is overspent, i.e., money they don't have, by about 1% – empty.
I'm sure this will be seen as reflexive criticism, but even though this is slightly more serious than the ridiculous first round of cuts he announced, we're still obviously not going to get to fiscally responsible spending with these kinds of efforts.
It's worth noting that even this larger amount of 17 billion is roughly half of what Bush proposed scrubbing last year (which is put up against an overall budget which was much smaller than Obama's, so the net cutting is even less significant when applied to the expansion), so I still can't take Obama seriously for keeping his word about 'going line by line'. And when you read how this is SOP for presidents to propose these cuts and then get ignored, why do we bother at all?
McCain had it right when he said the only way to accomplish some restraint would be across the board cuts.
You bother because it keeps up the pretense that the budget can be balanced without painful spending cuts and tax hikes. This idea is, of course, total bullshit, but we get it from both sides anyways because they're afraid to tell the People that they can't have everything for free.
So funding is going down for some programs but going up for others? Seems to me that this 17B is just getting rerouted somewhere else.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALe…
Here's the kicker, from the AP piece:
“Many of the savings proposed by Obama had been proposed by former President George W. Bush, only to be rejected by Congresses controlled by both Democrats and Republicans.”
This should be fun to watch indeed.
Ryan, your answer to my rhetorical question is all too correct.
As I've pointed out before, it's not as easy as it seems. Go ahead, get out your pencils and propose something. CS proposes across the board cuts. Not bad, but won't happen. First, the major savings would come from major programs. So we'd save a ton on military spending, which is huge, but the cries of “weakening our country” would kill the best savings. Then, the paltry savings that would result from cutting smaller social programs would be derided as “too small. why bother?”
As for the completely cynical Bush proposals; he spent like crazy for his entire term, then proposes cuts that won't be approved, while he's headed out the door. Who is gullible enough to hold up this 11th hour proposal as anything but “fiscal responsibility” window dressing? The GOP had total control and failed. Obama seems to be trying. I like “it's a process, not a light switch”.
PWT, feel free to propose something substantial, if you can.