The deficit “reduction” shell game

Let’s play a game.  I’m your employer, and I tell you in January that I’m cutting your pay 24%.  In December, I call you into the office and tell you to start showing some gratitude, because I’m going to give you a 3% raise.  Would you feel like you’re ahead of the game?  Of course not, and Karl Rove makes the same point about Barack Obama’s new-found deficit-hawk zeal:

After President Obama devoted much of 2009 to health care and global warming—two issues far down Americans’ list of concerns—the White House says he will pivot to jobs and deficit reduction in his State of the Union speech in a few weeks. The White House is considering dramatic gestures, perhaps announcing a spending freeze or even a 2% or 3% reduction in nondefense spending.

But Americans shouldn’t be misled by the election year ploy: Mr. Obama rigged the game by giving himself plenty of room to look tough on spending. He did that by increasing discretionary domestic spending for the last half of fiscal year 2009 by 8% and then increasing it another 12% for fiscal year 2010.

So discretionary domestic spending now stands at $536 billion, up nearly 24% from President George W. Bush’s last full year budget in fiscal 2008 of $433.6 billion. That’s a huge spending surge, even for a profligate liberal like Mr. Obama. The $102 billion spending increase doesn’t even count the $787 billion stimulus package, of which $534 billion remains unspent.

Where has the money gone?  One might have expected that with Obama’s admission that we are fighting a war against al-Qaeda rather than a crime wave that those resources may be going to defeating our enemy.  The military budget went up 3.6% in the new budget, albeit on top of larger increases over the last several years.  However, discretionary spending on non-military purposes rose 12%, a massive increase just for the one year.

Even the deficit-cutting appears to be more of a game than reality.  Obama wants to form a budget deficit commission to look into how to close gaps, but would be formed by an executive order.  Such a commission would have no authority to make any budget changes at all — since Congress creates and approves budgets.  Presidents propose budgets, and at least theoretically this commission could inform the proposal, but the White House already has an organization for that purpose called the Office of Management and Budget.  Its director, Peter Orszag, is one of the people who miscalculated the ten-year deficit projections by 22%, or over $2,200,000,000,000.  Small wonder Obama would want someone else’s advice on deficit reductions.

It’s all just a game.  It intends on distracting the public with some sleight-of-hand into believing we’re getting deficit reduction, while hiding the huge budget increases that have blown deficits to enormous proportions.

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