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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Obama's Budget to Americans: "Screw You All"

That's about how most people would describe (perhaps not in those words) Obama's new budget, which is supposedly focused "like a laser" on deficit reduction. Even Obam's own deficit commission chairman and fellow Dem Erskine Bowles said that "this budget goes 'nowhere near where they will have to go to resolve our fiscal nightmare.'" From the WSJ:

How unserious is this budget? Although the White House trumpets $2.18 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade, those savings are so far off in the magical "out years" that you can barely see them from here. More than 95% of the savings would happen after Mr. Obama's first term in the White House is over, and almost two-thirds of the promised deficit reduction would arrive after 2016. Pretending to cut deficits by pushing all real cuts into the future is Budget Flimflam 101.

...The Obama budget doesn't cut a penny from the deficit in the last seven months of fiscal 2011. Over the next three years—through 2013—the spending reductions in this budget add up to a paltry $20 billion net, out of a projected $3.5 trillion deficit. That's a 0.57% reduction in red ink and less than what the feds spend every two days.

...The proudest White House boast is that its budget would cap domestic discretionary spending at current levels for five years. These are programs ranging from NASA to the Washington Metro to school lunch programs to wind turbine grants, which overall and including stimulus expanded by more than 80% in Mr. Obama's first two years. This spending freeze would cut these programs from 2011-2013 by a grand total of $14 billion.

Obama needs to play more golf and leave this important work to the adults.