Take a deficit that has expanded to the HIGHEST ever in history and a President who says, “I’ll cut it by 50%; better yet we’ll save $2 TRILLION in 10 years.”
Let’s look at that 50% cut first. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has already said that the $1.4+ trillion deficit will be down to $701 billion if nothing is done. Why? Because that $800 billion is only for two years (supposedly) and IF this big pork package does anything, or if we just come out of this recession in spite of it, it will be at the $500 billion mark. Tada!
Now, on the $2 trillion savings: a good chunk of this is using figures as if the war in Iraq lasts till 2019 and the tax cuts don’t expire in 2010. If the war is over by then (and it will be), just like the taxes will expire, you get the $2 trillion savings without doing a damn thing.
Aha! But here is how that really works. They have this budget thing called a baseline, so let’s pretend that spending is increased by 20% one year for, say, Medicaid. That 20% is added to the baseline numbers. If someone says we are going to take 10% ofthat this year, in governmental weasel-speak it becomes a 10% cut.
The funding for the war in Iraq was always done in a special bill so was never added to the Department of Defense’s yearly budget. Now it is going to be added – that transparency thing, you know – so we will have have the grand weasel-speak announcement at some point that $190 billion was cut from defense spending.
Another way this can be used is, for example, say the Department of Education submits their annual budget and they want 15% more than the prior year. But someone in Congress or even the President says (he can say whatever he wants but it is up to Congress if it happens) no, you only need a 7% increase. Depending on who wants to make political hay, it either comes across in weasel-speak as “OH MY GOD! They’re cutting education spending by 8%!” or “Yahoo! Look how wonderful and responsible we are because we cut education spending by 8%!” When, in actuality, spending on education actually increased by 7%.
Congress writes the bills and appropriates the money, don’t forget that. The President can request money with Congress’ yea or nay and if Congress gets too out of hand the President can veto the spending bill. Which can be overridden by a 2/3 majority vote of the Congress critters.
So who is really in charge of the purse strings? Pelosi and Reid. That oughta make you feel real warm and fuzzy.