Read My Lips: No New Spending Edition

I've heard some discussion that the State of the Union address will be heavy with talk of how Obama has been championing a reduced deficit this past year, and how the administration has been 100% focused on economic recovery efforts. As if the failure to ramrod health insurance reform isn't a failure and didn't soak up the last 6 months.

But why do most government departments have discretionary spending anyway? And with an expected savings of $250billion, it's better than the $10 million Obama squeezed out of his cabinet in the first few months., but it's still a drop in the well ifthey really wanted to curtail excessive spending.

Discretionary spending is about 1/3 of total spending. "Security" makes up more than 1/2 the discretionary share.

By my math that leaves about 5/6 of the budget available for the free spending politicians in Washington to play with.

How long will it take before some Congressman proposes to "invest" the savings from the spending freeze to help more "people in need"?

Gregg said:

How long will it take before some Congressman proposes to "invest" the savings from the spending freeze to help more "people in need"?

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I thought that was the plan from the beginning?

Take away from agency X, create agency A, B and C and declare progress on reducing spending and waste while still buying votes.

Well at that rate it'll only take 30 years to just undo the damage he caused. That is if he stopped around 2 trillion. I lost count.

John Boehner’s spokesman, Michael Steel, said that the president’s proposed budget freeze was like going on a diet after winning a pie eating contest.

Technically, it’s more like starting a diet in the middle of pie eating contest -- the president wants to finish the spending increases he’s proposed before he starts capping -- but you get the idea.

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I think that's a pretty good analogy.


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...berals-freak-out--82678742.html#ixzz0dja7jiUV


http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...st-Reads----Liberals-freak-out--82678742.html

icerose said:

Well at that rate it'll only take 30 years to just undo the damage he caused.

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LOL. Uh, dare I ask where you get this idea?

A $1.2 trillion deficit was baked in before Obama took office. See here. Notice the date? The actual deficit for FY2009 ended up at $1.4 trillion, and Obama's stimulus package contributed less than $200 billion to that in 2009.

Hate all you want, but get real.

icerose said:

Well at that rate it'll only take 30 years to just undo the damage he caused. That is if he stopped around 2 trillion. I lost count.

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GregB said:

LOL. Uh, dare I ask where you get this idea?

A $1.2 trillion deficit was baked in before Obama took office. See here. Notice the date? The actual deficit for FY2009 ended up at $1.4 trillion, and Obama's stimulus package contributed less than $200 billion to that in 2009.

Hate all you want, but get real.

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I said it when Bush was in office. I'll repeat it when Obama is in office. The President is irrelevant when it comes to deficits. The President proposes a budget, but Congress makes extensive changes and sends it back for his signature. Congress is responsible for spending money, so you need to look who's in control of Congress if you want to assign blame for deficit spending.

GregB said:

LOL. Uh, dare I ask where you get this idea?

A $1.2 trillion deficit was baked in before Obama took office. See here. Notice the date? The actual deficit for FY2009 ended up at $1.4 trillion, and Obama's stimulus package contributed less than $200 billion to that in 2009.

Hate all you want, but get real.

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Um...what about this?

Stimulus Spending: Estimated Cost of the Democrats' Stimulus Package

The Congressional Budget Office comes out with a cost estimate of the stimulus

Posted January 28, 2009

• $526 billion: Estimated resulting increase in [COLOR=#005497 !important][COLOR=#005497 !important]budget[/COLOR][/COLOR] deficits between 2009 and 2010
• $816 billion: Estimated resulting increase in budget deficits between 2009 and 2019
• $92.3 billion: Estimated increase in spending on labor, education, health and human services between 2009 and 2019
• $59.5 billion: Amount appropriated to the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development
• $188 billion: Estimated decrease in federal revenue between 2009 and 2019 as a result of proposed changes in [COLOR=#005497 !important][COLOR=#005497 !important]tax [COLOR=#005497 !important]law[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]

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http://www.usnews.com/articles/opin...d-cost-of-the-democrats-stimulus-package.html

Didn't you forget a bit here Greg? I realize math is hard but most computers have a calculator function. Now I'm no math whiz, but it seems to me that adds up to be a bit more than $200 billion--more like $1,681,800,000,000.

Be an apologist all you want, but get real.

Seriously.

Roger J Carlson said:

I said it when Bush was in office. I'll repeat it when Obama is in office. The President is irrelevant when it comes to deficits. The President proposes a budget, but Congress makes extensive changes and sends it back for his signature. Congress is responsible for spending money, so you need to look who's in control of Congress if you want to assign blame for deficit spending.

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And this is very true, to a point. Sure, Congress allocates the monies but both President Bush and President Obama were at least partially responsible for the two stimulus packages.

And also, people need to take into account how far in advance federal budgets are (a) set and (b) impact the actual (imaginary) money that fuels our economy.

mscelina said:

Didn't you forget a bit here Greg? I realize math is hard but most computers have a calculator function. Now I'm no math whiz, but it seems to me that adds up to be a bit more than $200 billion--more like $1,681,800,000,000.

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You think the stimulus package added $1.68 trillion to the $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009? You're right -- you're not a math whiz.

mscelina said:

And this is very true, to a point. Sure, Congress allocates the monies but both President Bush and President Obama were at least partially responsible for the two stimulus packages.

And also, people need to take into account how far in advance federal budgets are (a) set and (b) impact the actual (imaginary) money that fuels our economy.

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That the President has a role is undeniable. However, that does not make him responsible.

Roger J Carlson said:

I said it when Bush was in office. I'll repeat it when Obama is in office. The President is irrelevant when it comes to deficits. The President proposes a budget, but Congress makes extensive changes and sends it back for his signature. Congress is responsible for spending money, so you need to look who's in control of Congress if you want to assign blame for deficit spending.

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Well, and spending is only half of the equation. Revenue is the other half. And in 2009, the shortfall in revenue caused by the recession accounted for more than $400 billion. In other words, we'd have gotten a big deficit in FY2009 even if the budget had been balanced when it was passed.

icerose said:

Well at that rate it'll only take 30 years to just undo the damage he caused. That is if he stopped around 2 trillion. I lost count.

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GregB said:

LOL. Uh, dare I ask where you get this idea?

A $1.2 trillion deficit was baked in before Obama took office. See here. Notice the date? The actual deficit for FY2009 ended up at $1.4 trillion, and Obama's stimulus package contributed less than $200 billion to that in 2009.

Hate all you want, but get real.

Click to expand...

mscelina said:

Um...what about this?

[/LIST]http://www.usnews.com/articles/opin...d-cost-of-the-democrats-stimulus-package.html

Didn't you forget a bit here Greg? I realize math is hard but most computers have a calculator function. Now I'm no math whiz, but it seems to me that adds up to be a bit more than $200 billion--more like $1,681,800,000,000.

Be an apologist all you want, but get real.

Seriously.

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GregB said:

You think the stimulus package added $1.68 trillion to the $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009? You're right -- you're not a math whiz.

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Ahhh...Icerose didn't specify FY2009. Going by Celina's numbers, her "around two trillion" seems to fit.

robeiae said:

Ahhh...Icerose didn't specify FY2009. Going by Celina's numbers, her "around two trillion" seems to fit.

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Since icerose specified "the damage he caused," I thought she was referring to things that have actually happened. If I'd known she was talking about the damage he caused in 2019, I'd have kept my mouth shut and practiced my verb tenses or something.

So anyway, I'm an apologist. I think Obama actually balanced the FY2020 budget in 2013.

My bad. Carry on.

Okay...so if program X is created in year 1 and funding is authorized for the next ten years to year 11, those that authorized that funding have no responsibility?

Well, I guess that's the DC way.

robeiae said:

Okay...so if program X is created in year 1 and funding is authorized for the next ten years to year 11, those that authorized that funding have no responsibility?

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Oh, okay. The "damage" icerose was talking about was the damage to deficits over the next ten years caused by the stimulus, not Obama's actual impact on the 2009 deficit since taking office a year ago. Fine.

We're looking at about $10 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years (always assuming, of course, that certain tax cuts aren't extended and we don't start any new wars). In this case, Obama caused (or the bill he signed will cause, or whatever) about 7% of the "damage" over that period.

Maybe we can't solve a $10 trillion problem with ridiculous and unsupported charges about how "Obama did it!!!" one year into his (first) term.

ETA: To get back to the OP, note that if the administration's claims of a $250 billion ten-year impact of the discretionary freeze are correct, that amounts to 2.5 or 3% of the problem. In other words, it means not a whole lot unless its a signal of real action to come in Congress. I'm not optimistic.

Without getting into who caused what debate, 1.7tril is much more than 7% out of 10tril. Close to 20% actually.

Where did 1.7 come from? The cost of the stimulus package through 2019 is $787 billion according to the CBO.

post 9
EDIT: By the way, why stop at stimulus?

dmytryp said:

post 9

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From post 9:
816 billion: Estimated resulting increase in budget deficits between 2009 and 2019

I haven't followed the link to track down the $29 billion discrepancy. I'll let it go. We'll call it 8.16% of the damage. And I guess we're talking about the stimulus because that's what mscelina wanted to talk about when I mentioned the $1.2 trillion deficit we had when Obama took office.

ETA: Okay, I looked. It's just a list of data points in the US News Opinion section. It's not cumulative. You don't get to add them together!

What would you like to talk about? Who dat?

Don said:

So the butter budget's going to take a hit, but the gun budget's exempt. Sound familiar?

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Obama's quote didn't even mention butter.

Don't blame (just) George Bush. He had plenty of help. Congress is largely at fault.
Let's not forget the state and local governments that feed like starving pigs from the federal trough.

How many times have we heard from our local community leaders: "this project will cost us very little because most of the money is available from the Federal Government."

Whatever happened to "just say no"?

didn't he campaign against this?

from the wayback machine (october 2008):

With all the horrible decisions coming out of the McCain/Palin campaign, it's almost like shooting fish in a barrel (or wolves from a helicopter) to point out more failure.

But we shouldn't let McCain get a free-ride on his proposed government spending freeze. If for some fluke of a reason (2000 election, anyone?) McCain wins this thing, his proposed freeze will send us back into the Dark Ages.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-mance/mccains-spending-freeze-w_b_135859.html