We’re not talking actual budget cuts here, just a promise not to make
the budget bigger. Or rather, part of the budget. A smallish part. For
three years.
Update: Alex Conant says it’s kabuki.
It only applies to “non-security” discretionary spending, so the
Pentagon is safe for the time being. But to put that $250 billion over
10 years in context, remember: We’re now running monthly deficits of upwards of $200 billion.
But as Ed Whelan notes:
Only the reader who makes it to the
carryover page will learn that the freeze would not apply to
“entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,”
“would not restrain funding for the $787 billion economic stimulus
package Obama pushed through Congress early last year,” would not
“apply to a new bill aimed at creating jobs,” and would be “unlikely to
affect the approximately $900 billion health-care bill.”
The problem has gone far beyond a freeze. One look at the base
number frozen will inform anyone familiar with the budget that this is
nothing but window dressing. Obama proposes to freeze around $450
billion of the federal budget — a budget that is over $3.6 trillion for
fiscal year 2010. He’s freezing less than 13% of federal spending.
Let’s also have a little history lesson. When George W. Bush and a Republican Congress issued their final budget,
FY2007, the federal government spent $2.72 trillion. Democrats took
control of Congress and issued their own budget for FY2008 and
negotiated it with Bush for his signature, spending $2.98 trillion.
Democrats didn’t bother to negotiate the FY09 budget with Bush, instead
issuing continuing resolutions for spending and delivering a final
budget of over $3.1 trillion.