Another long post; this time on Obama's budget ... worth the long read !
Obama's ridiculous spending "freeze" -- video illustrates the absurdity here:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGM3NzUwMjY5ZjA5NDk2M2Q1NWU1Mjc4N2QyMzdlZGI=
Ryan: ‘Two Futures’ [Robert Costa]
Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, tells National Review Online that President Obama’s budget “is not like most budgets, with some tax-code tinkering and spending.” No, he says, “this budget is a choice. We are about to make a decision whose consequences will last for generations.”
“This budget presents a choice of two futures,” Ryan says. “Don’t look at the president’s rhetoric, look at his actions. His substance implies a different reality. Not only is this budget worse than the last one, but it triples our debt within ten years, features gushers of tax increases, and relies on some partisan commission to do the heavy lifting on fiscal policy after the next election. Make no mistake: This is a budget aimed to advance the administration’s philosophy and ideology. By increasing taxes and letting the country spiral into debt, this budget is a firm step toward transforming America into a collectivist society overseen by a social-welfare state.”
“The fiscal future of America, however, is still in the hands of the people,” says Ryan. “It is not too late to turn things around and inject our economy with the freedom to grow. Republicans have offered voters a roadmap. The president, CBO, and Peter Orzag have all acknowledged that it is a credible plan. We want to talk to the American people, and listen to them, like adults, with crystal-clear alternatives based upon the founding principles of this country and let them decide. This budget is about more than specific programs or policies. It is really about the American idea, and whether we want to move towards a European-style welfare state. I know that seems like those are big words, but those are the stakes. It is hard to come to another conclusion when you look at our debt and how we are spending. We are in a very dire fiscal situation.”
This year, Ryan says, “will be the year for the GOP to show Americans that they are no longer the opposition party, but the alternative party. The president acknowledged that in Baltimore last week. We had a good discussion, and I’m happy he came, but at the end of the day, we come to this from a different premise. We believe that the individual is the nucleus of American life, and they see the government in that role. That is our big difference.”
“This is a choice of two futures,” he reiterates. “It’s not too late to make the right decision.”
Obama Adds $2 Trillion in Spending and Deficits to Last Year’s Budget [Brian Riedl]
According to our quick analysis of his budget, the president’s budget also would:
* Permanently expand the federal government by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over 2007 pre-recession levels;
* Raise taxes on all Americans by more than $2 trillion over the next decade (counting health-care reform and cap-and-trade);
* Raise taxes for 3.2 million small businesses and upper-income taxpayers by an average of $300,000 over the next decade;
* Borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010;
* Run a $1.6 trillion deficit in 2010 — $143 billion higher than the recession-driven 2009 deficit;
* Leave permanent deficits that top $1 trillion in as late as 2020 — a time of assumed peace and prosperity; and* Double the publicly held national debt to over $18 trillion.
Before the recession, federal spending totaled $24,000 per U.S. household. President Obama would hike it to $36,000 per household by 2020 — an inflation-adjusted $12,000-per-household expansion of government. Even the steep tax increases planned for all taxpayers would not finance all of this spending: The president’s budget would add trillions of dollars in new debt.
President Obama has offered a budget that does nothing to address the nation’s serious short-term and long-term fiscal problems — and indeed makes them worse. By doubling the national debt over pre-recession levels, America could head toward the tipping point when rising debt levels will become too large for global capital markets to absorb, potentially triggering a financial crisis, an interest-rate spike, and gigantic tax increases.
The president who said, “I didn’t come here to pass our problems on to the next president or the next generation — I’m here to solve them” would, over the next decade, pass $75,000 per household in additional debt into the laps of our children and grandchildren.
— Brian Riedl is Grover M. Hermann fellow in federal budgetary affairs at the Heritage Foundation.
Obama's Budget and the $1 Trillion Mistake [Chris Edwards]
President Obama has introduced his budget for next year. He proposes that the government spend $3.83 trillion in fiscal 2011. To put that number into context, let's take a trip down memory lane.
The bottom line in the chart shows the proposed spending over ten years in Pres. George W. Bush's first budget, which was released in February 2001. Bush came into office when annual federal spending was $1.86 trillion. He proposed to increase spending at a healthy clip, rising to $2.71 trillion by 2011.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmY4N2Q4YWY1NDAzMDQ5OTI1NDAxMjdhZTg2ZjY5MmM=
The top line in the chart is actual spending and Obama's proposed spending for 2011. It reveals that Bush and his team started blowing their budget almost immediately. They kept spending more and more — wars, a giant new homeland-security bureaucracy, a big-government response to Katrina, the prescription-drug bill, doubling K-12 education spending, big pay raises for federal workers, financial bailouts, and so on. I can't think of a single crisis that occurred on President Bush's watch that the Bush-Rove team didn't have an interventionist and big-spending response to.
In Bush's last year, FY2009, the government spent $1 trillion more than the Bush-Rove team had originally planned. It is true that 2009 spending included $112 billion for the Obama stimulus bill, so let's take that out. With that adjustment, the Bush-Rove team ended up spending $916 billion more annually by 2009 than they had originally planned. Note that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost only about one-fifth of that 2009 excess spending amount.
Then Obama comes into office and turns out to be Bush on steroids with respect to federal spending. Obama is calling for spending $3.83 trillion in 2011, or $1.1 trillion more than the federal budget nine years ago had promised. That's a 41 percent forecasting error.
The lesson from all this is that an administration's promised spending beyond the first year is meaningless. Obama is proposing a freeze on a very small part of the budget, for example, but his budget plan next year will likely find reasons to break that promise. It scares the hell out of me that federal spending down the road could be 41 percent higher than even the huge increases projected by Obama. But that seems to be where we are headed unless we put in place laws or constitutional amendments to really clamp down on the spend-happy politicians of both parties.— Chris Edwards is director of tax policy at the Cato Institute and manager of http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/.
Sen. Judd Gregg: Obama's 'Drunken Sailor' Budget [Robert Costa]
President Obama’s new budget, with its record-breaking $1.6 trillion deficit for the current fiscal year, is a sign that the administration “is not working to end its drunken-sailor ways,” says Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, to National Review Online. “They are playing small ball when they need to be thinking about major-league fiscal solutions.”
Gregg says what concerns him the most is the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that cumulative deficits will reach $6 trillion by 2020 (Brian Riedl predicts a ten-year deficit of $13 trillion), and the president’s “regrettable” avoidance of any “serious” solution. “President Obama’s language doesn’t connect with the substance of his fiscal policy,” says Gregg. “Yes, there are a few fiscally-responsible ideas being proposed, but they’re not enough. For example, with the spending freeze, I say go for it, but we should be doing a hard freeze starting this year. And when it comes to spending cuts, we should be aiming at the programs and entitlements that spend the most money — the big-dollar numbers.”
What would Gregg like to see instead? “First, repeal TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), since the administration is using it as a piggybank, and put that money toward debt reduction. Second, rescind stimulus spending after 2010. Third, stop trying to reduce Medicare spending in order to create major new health-care entitlements.” Gregg would also like to see “broad-based tax cuts to create economic activity, and talk from the president about discipline on his tax-credit proposal.”
“All in all, this budget is an unnecessary and dramatic increase in the size of government that will add innumerable new programs,” he says. “We need to be a solvent country that can pay back its debt and this is not a start. We will be offering amendments in the Senate, and I hope to get some bipartisan support to discipline our fiscal health. I think there will be some responsible votes on the other side of the aisle who will agree.”
“Just three days after talking to House Republicans about the importance of fiscal responsibility, President Obama is submitting another budget that spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much.
“Filled with more reckless spending and more unsustainable debt, the President’s budget is just more of the same at a time when the American people are looking for Democrats in Washington to listen and change course. Families asking ‘where are the jobs’ deserve better than more government ‘stimulus’ programs and another year of attempting to tax and spend our way to recovery. Under President Obama’s budget, the federal government will continue to live well beyond its means for years to come with no relief in sight.
“I’m pleased that the President has spoken out about the need to get our fiscal house in order, and his proposed spending freeze is certainly a good first step, though it’s already being undercut by Washington Democrats and liberal special interests. Serious fiscal responsibility requires more than a few cuts here and there at the margins. Republicans have proposed adopting strict budget caps that limit federal spending on an annual basis and are enforceable by the President. These caps were a critical plank in the budget alternative Republicans proposed last year, led by Budget Committee Ranking Republican Paul Ryan, and they are notably absent from the President’s budget. Without these caps, the federal budget deficit will continue to spiral out of control and this broken status quo will continue.
“I am also pleased that the President’s budget ensures our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have the resources they need to succeed in their mission. It’s my hope that this will continue to be an area in which the President and House Republicans find consensus.
“Another priority that has received strong bipartisan support in recent days is putting a stop to the Obama Administration’s plan to try the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and his-co conspirators in civilian courts in downtown Manhattan. Yet, the President’s budget irresponsibly spends hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on importing dangerous terrorists to U.S. soil, housing them at a ‘Gitmo North’ facility and trying them in civilian courts. Republicans will continue to stand with the American people and fight this severely misguided plan.”
NOTE: Republicans proposed spending caps as part of last year’s budget alternative, which was included in the “Better Solutions” document Leader Boehner presented to President Obama on Friday.
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