Looking over the Democratic party’s 2012 platform, I count 15 references to “budget.” Almost all of them are references to the budget passed by House Republicans, or boasts of spending more money.
The first use of the word “budget” is thus: “The Republican budget plan would end Medicare as we know it.” Hey, look, it’s PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year for 2011!
Then we read about the GOP’s plan to “balance the budget on the backs of the middle class”; their “lopsided budget”; the accusation that “Republicans in Congress have introduced a budget that would gut rural economic programs.” “We reject the Republican budget plan.”
Then we see a reference to “pay-as-you-go budget rules” — this would be the same pay-as-you-go budget rules that have been waived at least 26 times between 2007 and 2010.
Then there’s a reference to the citizens of Washington D.C.’s “right to have the law and budget of their local government respected without congressional interference.”
“When President Obama took office, forty eight states faced the prospect of budget deficits in the next fiscal year.” So they’re worried about state-government deficits, at least.
The word “budget” comes up in the context of pointing to where the administration has spent more money:
“President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have also sought to increase the budget for the Peace Corps.”
“Despite budgetary constraints, the President has worked with Congress to increase security assistance to Israel.”
“With his latest budget, the President is fulfilling his historic commitment to request $4 billion over three years for the Global Fund . . .”
By the way, why is it a historic commitment to request a lot of money? Wouldn’t the Global Fund and other efforts against AIDS prefer to see actual allocations of money?
“In our current fiscal environment, we must also make tough budgetary decisions across the board — and that includes within the defense budget. The Budget Control Act enacted by Congress last year, with the support of Republicans and Democrats alike, mandates reductions in federal spending, including defense spending.”
Naturally, the one area of government spending that Democrats can find to cut is at the Pentagon.