Dolt while Away
Mark Kirk with his don’t trust US Budget projections.
Alexi responded:
“In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Mark Kirk is essentially telling China, which holds more U.S. debt than any nation on earth, not to trust the American government, and by extension, the American people. This puts the full faith and credit of the United States at risk and threatens to permanently wreak havoc on the credit markets that are essential to our recovery and our economic future.
“Congressman Kirk’s reckless actions demonstrate a terrible lapse in judgment and should be immediately retracted,” said Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.
More than that, this President finally put the wars back in the budget instead of funding them ‘off the books’–something Kirk supported over and over again. Yet now he’s upset about the honesty of the budgeting numbers? We are working with the first honest budget numbers in 8 years. Are they perfect? No, all economic models make assumptions and those are likely not perfect, but the underlying numbers are far better than any year the Bush administration produced.
June 16th, 2009 at
“We are working with the first honest budget numbers in 8 years.”
We’ve never had an honest budget and we likely never will.
The difference between Obama’s budget and Bush’s budgets is simply a change in the sign of dishonesty. Under Bush’s budgets, his administration consistently understated the expected amount of money being spent.
Obama swithed from analysis of current law to current policy to do the opposite: he overstates the expected amount of money being spent. The reason is simple: he can use these “savings” to fund other initiatives.
So, roughly, you see this debate every year that we “fix” the alternative minimum tax. Under Bush’s budgets, a “fix” would always reduce revenue. As such, Congress should have found a way to make up for the lost revenue although they never did. Under Obama’s budgets, the “fix” is already assumed. So there is no longer any discussion of the cost of the “fix.” There’s no need to find other ways to make up the lost revenue.
Essentially, Bush’s budgets guaranteed higher deficits. Obama’s budget allows him to pack in more spending without worrying about offsetting the costs or raising taxes.
So how is Obama’s budget dishonest? Because “current policy” can be completely fluid. For instance, Obama’s administration assumes that spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for anti-terrorism activities will remain at the amounts provided in 2008 all the way out to 2019. But his policy is to reduce our commitment — which should and will reduce the amount spent. He wants to use that money to fund some of his other initiatives without telling people that the initiatives will raise the deficit. That’s equally dishonest.
June 16th, 2009 at
That’s a pretty good analysis. In regards to the specific, one can argue about the costs or fixing the armed forces after withdrawal, but ultimately the larger point is good.