We are at the start of a serious conversation about government spending. In response to the president’s budget proposal for FY 2012, the House Budget Committee put forth a plan which leaves defense spending and Social Security untouched but proposes $6.2 trillion in federal spending cuts relative to the president’s budget over the next ten years. This, in turn, was followed by a Republican Study Committee plan in which all spending categories were on the table, including Social Security, and which cuts federal spending by $9.5 trillion relative to the president’s budget over the next ten years.
This chart illustrates federal spending under these three plans:
Under each plan, spending levels are projected to grow, albeit at a slower pace than the economy. The differences in spending are meaningful: By 2021, there is a $1.5 trillion difference in the level of spending called for between the president’s budget and the RSC’s proposal.
What I find most interesting is how President Obama’s unserious plan– in that it makes no attempt to cut spending or debt, or even to include recommendations from his own deficit commission — was deemed worthy of serious discussion when it came out, while the more thoughtful Ryan and RSC plans were pronounced dead on arrival. And they may be. However, unsustainable overspending leads to debt and deficits. That means that these competing budget proposals mark the beginning of a budget conversation that must end in a tenable plan to reduce federal spending.
"...albeit at a slower pace than the economy."
Using whose assumptions?
d(^_^)b
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"Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive"
Obama's last plan hasn't lasted since February and we're supposed to take ten year projections seriously?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"A serious discussion"? Like Republicans want to kill women? Like The Tea Party wants old people to drop dead from starvation? The time for expecting a serious discussion about spending is over. In Dec 09 when the Government exceeded the "debt limit" the debt was $12.1T. It is now Apr 11, and the debt is $14.2T. The GOP needs to decide, Apocalypse Now or Apocalypse Later.
The Left has decided they are going to go for America's throat. Time to shut them down. If Friday was any indication, the GOP doesn't have the stones to do what this is going to take. Scott Walker for Speaker of the House.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo no "shrink Leviathan" option then?
We need a real Tea Party political party, or to very quickly, take over the GOP from the inside.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOn what planet is a "plan" that pretends immediate miraculous growth and 2.8% unemployment "serious"? No, really. Explain it to me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis video clip says it all: External Link
. That's right, it's Jack Nicholson famous scene as Col. Jessup in the 1992 courtroom drama "A Few Good Men," telling us all we need to know about the coming conversation. The American electorate can't handle, or doesn't want to handle, the truth. The truth is that we either have to pay for all the goodies our Congressional and White House pushers are all too ready to heap upon us, or to let go of most of them.
The Democrats in particular will resort to the fiction that there would be no fiscal problem at all if they could only repeal the Bush tax cuts; that the resulting $68 billion in extra annual revenue would miraculously cancel out the $1 trillion in annual deficits their side is recommending. The Republicans are little better, being no less reluctant than the Democrats to means test Social Security and Medicare and to increase the eligibility age for both. The Republicans also get the majority of the blame (or credit if you prefer) for refusing to recognize that all the borrowing necessary to support continued spending of $800 billion/year on the Pentagon poses a greater threat to our national security than whatever security it is that we're supposed to be buying with all that money.
No, the situation is hopeless. It will take at least another five years, probably 10, possibly more, before our elected representatives will have the confidence to make the spending cuts necessary to save our way of life, without fear of defeat at the hands of a vengeful electorate at the first opportunity. A nation generally does get the government it deserves, and this is the one that we deserve.
If only we could say the same about those Americans not yet born and those too young to vote, that they too deserve to have their wealth spent by their parents and grandparents (as well as by the 50% of their elders who could not be troubled to raise children). These young victims don't deserve it. They don't deserve to be the victims of the greatest scheme of taxation without representation in history, But the Democrats couldn't care less, and the Republicans care not a whole lot more. Click on the link again. External Link
. Jack says it all.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis chart makes clear that:
1. The obama spending plan is an absurdity, a laughable plan that drives us off the cliff of the waterfall. Obama is doing CYA with his 'do-over' budget but I doubt he will fix the real problems, since he is incapable of real fiscal responsibility.
2. The Ryan plan is not bold enough break from the massive over-spending of Obama and the Democrats. there's a single digit percent difference in the spending level for the upcoming decade. This locks in the massive growth that we have had in Govt in the last 3 years. We need lower spending targets.
3. The Republican Study Group FY2012 should be the BASELINE for discussion, anything close to the Ryan levels will be compromised away into pitifully small response to a serious problem when its compromised with the Obama/Reid side.
4. NONE of these plans seriously undo massive government.
Spending was only $1.7 trillion in 2000, we doubled it in 10 years, we need to get under $3 trillion in FY2012. None of the plans are BOLD ENOUGH TO TAKE SERIOUS CUTS NOW IN ALL AREAS OF GOVERNMENT - entitlements, domestic discretionary, and military.
5. Message to Congress: Do NOT raise the debt limit without having a plan to (a) cut the deficit in half in FY2010 (b) defund Obamacare and (c) eliminate the deficit in 8 years. oh, and (d) cap spending and protect taxpayers.
That's the kind of "change" we need.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDo all that, and the nation and history will honor you.
We are going to have to close Federal Departments and shut down programs if we want to keep out of bankruptcy.
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