Budget: Baby Terminator
7 May
Today the Administration released more detail for the President’s budget. The President tried to emphasize his fiscal responsibility by highlighting some of the programs he proposes to terminate or reduce. Budget Director Orszag released the Terminations, Reductions, and Savings volume.
This morning the President said,
But one of the pillars of this foundation is fiscal responsibility. We can no longer afford to spend as if deficits don’t matter and waste is not our problem. We can no longer afford to leave the hard choices for the next budget, the next administration — or the next generation.
That’s why I’ve charged the Office of Management and Budget, led by Peter Orszag and Rob Nabors who are standing behind me today, with going through the budget — program by program, item by item, line by line — looking for areas where we can save taxpayer dollars.
Today, the budget office is releasing the first report in this process: a list of more than 100 programs slated to be reduced or eliminated altogether. And the process is ongoing.
Here is a comparison of the budgetary savings from President Obama’s proposed discretionary program terminations and reductions, compared to those proposed by President Bush in his last budget:
Some observations:
- President Bush proposed $6.6 B (57%) more in discretionary program terminations and reductions than President Obama.
- Three-fourths of President Obama’s T&R savings come from defense.
- President Bush proposed 6.7 times more non-defense T&R savings than President Obama. (= 18.1 ÷ 2.7)
Now this graph covers only the proposed savings from annually appropriated (“discretionary”) programs. The bulk of federal spending is in the mandatory programs. I will cover that separately.
Today the President said, “But these savings, large and small, add up.” It’s too bad they don’t add up to more.
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Mr. O is a joke!
Is Harvard Law School proud that they produced this sophist to lead the country?
The guy that lives in the white house is not only going to bankrupt the country, he’s going to leave us totally defenseless. Does he really think he will still be in charge if we are attacked again? He is totally clueless.
OMB even tries to classify some $26 billion of it’s tax hikes on the oil and gas industry as “mandatory program terminations”…now that’s quite a stretch even for them!
Oh, how insightful. Just line up a year of Bush’s discretionary cuts with a year of Obama’s, and conclude out of hand that it’s too bad that Obama is not Bush. Not much of a proof, but I think you’ve made your point anyway. Fiscal responsibility is undergoing a terrible setback because Obama’s spending is different from Bush’s. We should all pray for 8 more budgetary years like the 8 years Bush provided.
Cynic,
Questions: How much do you think another 9-11 will cost? How about a nuclearized Talibanistan? What will we ultimately have to pay in order to deal with an Iran armed with nukes? How much will it cost to beat back a Russia that wants to reclaim its old empire? What if China invades Taiwan? How about North Korea going nuclear and invading South Korea?
Think about the above tonight…and Obama’s budget priorities…and, if you think hard–and long– enough, you’ll start trembling in your Hope ‘n’ Change Jammies.
We cannot know HIS ways because He is the ONE.
It’s interesting. The President admitted the initial search for $100m in savings back in April was a ‘drop in the bucket’ but that this was only the beginning of the cuts that would be made. I thought the budget was held up an additional month because we’d see a much tougher scrub. This clearly isn’t it. Even then, we’ll see how much of this Congress goes along with.
Bush’s main expenditures went towards 2 places:
Tax cuts to increase the take home pay of the top 1% — Most of them making their money in “finance”, taking huge fees for moving money around mortgage backed securities, and encouraging the average joe to invest in real estate. That money sure seems well spent… I think about it every night, what happened to the lifetime of my family’s savings poured into 401Ks and the houses we lived in.
The rest of it went to turning Iraq from just another middle eastern dictatorship, only strange because it wasn’t run by woman hating Islamic fundamentalists, into a war-torn, rebellion prone meat-grinder for our troops. One that gradually filled with Al-Queda, mujahadeen and all the rest of that rot.
Yeah, what if this and what if that? What if my ass, look at results. Bush would be a great president if he actually did the things you fantasize about him doing, but you are just living in dreams.
I followed this blog because I wanted another well-informed conservative economic outlook (I guess I will just stick to Mankiw and MR). This article is just rabble-rousing trash, with no attempt to use expertise, experience and training to show things the way they are.
If you like and agree with this article, it’s because you already liked and agreed with the conclusions before you even read it. You already thought Obama’s policies were wasteful and his priorities misplaced. That’s fine. But realize this is just a narrow and shortsighted piece… budgets go back to the founders of this country, and the best perspective provided is “hey this is last year, and this is this year”.
You read a graph that says Bush cut discretionary military spending last year more than Obama plans to this year. You read that graph, the graph that says Bush is a bigger cutter of military funding, and you tell me that I should go to bed scared of China invading Taiwan, because of Obama. Why is that? Because this article is misleading trash. Even though the cherry-picked graphic displayed alongside the article doesn’t even support the idea that Obama is harming the military more than Bush, you still are lead to believe that idea. You do, because that was your opinion before you even read the article. The article hints at it, and you believed it beforehand, so you believe it even more strongly afterwards.
Both budget “savings” numbers are pathetic. Obama’s are more pathetic than Bush’s, and especially pathetic given the size of the Obama’s budget.
Today’s treasury bond auction was a disaster. Our borrowers are skeptical that we will get our fiscal house in order. They are right to be skeptical
Cynic says: “We should all pray for 8 more budgetary years like the 8 years Bush provided.’
Yeah, as pathetic as it may be, we should pray for the fiscal responsibility of the Bush years. Per Obama’s 2009 OMB report, during Bush’s 8 years, deficits averaged $290 Billion. We heard constant whining from liberals who said he was mortgaing our children’s future and ruining our country. Within 100 days, Obama quadrupled the deficit, passed an assinine “stimulus” bill on which the vote occurred less than 12 hours after it wa made available to OCngress and only 15% will be spent before 2011, and now this clown says he is cutting $17 Billion from a $3.4 Trllion budget. If Bush had done this, the media would be excoriating him for such nonsense. Obama is hellbent on turning this country into a socialist country. He is abusing the poower of his office to force private parties to concede their contractual rights for the benefit of Democrat party benefactors, he has failed to even start the process of fixing our financial system, he failed to get a stimulus agreement with Europe, he failed to get a single extra soldier from NATO for the war in Afghanistan. Guantanamo is still open, the Obama DOJ is maintaining the state secrets defense in several detainee trials, he is continuing the policy of xtraordinary rendition, etc., etc.
Obama is dishonest and incompetent. He is a malignant narcissist who told Harry reid that he has a “gift” and who, during the campaign, seriously claimed that to know him was to love him. That being said, I have less of a problem with him than I do with my fellowcitizens like Cynic. Democrats are full of it. They couldn’t have cared less about torture when Clinton was using extrordinary rendition to nab people and hand them over to the Egyptian, Syrian and Saudi Arabian intelligence services to be tortured by their intelligence services. Really tortured. Democrats couldn’t have cared less when Clinton flailed around bombing county after country as a distraction from his domestic political troubles. In one 12 month period, Clinton bombed an aspirin factory in the Sudan, some tents in Afghanistan, Iraq and Serbia. To borrow an argument repeatedly asserted by Democrats over he last eight years, Serbia never attacked us. Neither di Sudan, Iraq or Afghanistan. Clinton accomplished nothing by bombing Serbia but he did manage to cause a massive humanitarian crisis when refugees flooded out of Kosovo, he also managed to bomb the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and to kill a few thousand Serbian civilians. Democrats said nothing, but they all of a sudden became sincere, principled opponents of war when Republican became president. We are in trouble when we have so many ignorant, narcissistic liberals who lack self awareness and who will stop at nothing to have their way; even if that means that this country is permanently harmed.
OK, folks, we are crossing the line into incivility. The vigorous debate is fantastic. The name-calling is not.
Let’s try to keep it impassioned yet respectful, at least toward each other.
Thank you.
Cynic,
Eight more years of Bush-class deficits would only increase our national debt by another 50%, not 100%. The comparison demonstrates that neither is a fiscal hawk, but one is clearly much less hawkish than the other.
Here’s hoping future reports will show more cuts.
so, what I see from these charts is that Obama hopes to distract us with trivia, while setting yet another new record in profligate spending.
So, when was the last time the federal spending actually declined, either in absolute terms or as a percentage of GNP? Back during the Eisenhower administration, wasn’t it?
-jcr
I’d like to apologize for the last paragraph of my previous post, pretty much the whole thing, considering that the graph really does not show Bush cutting military expenditures. I’m skeptical that Bush did not terminate or reduce any military programs at all, but, I am sorry for firing that off so vigorously.
I don’t completely abandon the gist of that paragraph though. I still think the simple graphic, and any conclusions drawn from it are misleading. Military spending terminations and reductions do not directly translate into a stronger or weaker military. It only does if you don’t believe in government waste. For instance, I think I made it clear I feel that the Iraq war budget was generally wasteful, and further that it made us weaker today.
Regarding expenditures as a % of GDP, they went down throughout Clinton’s administration: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CQyU4ayBifw/SYm13Xx0UII/AAAAAAAACDU/Kwm9DFExl1s/s1600-h/fed+budget.jpg
Um, the absolute levels are much lowewr, while Obama runs a deficit five times Bush’s last deficit. So, is claiming that Clinton could have reduced the deficit all that the Democractic Party has to offer right now? I don’t see how that has anything to do with th3e massive deficit and money devaluation that the President is engaged in, right now. Clinton doesn’t need my vite in 2012, and by giving me left-wing BS, you’re convincing this independent that “moderate” Democrats are anything but.
p.s. By pissing all over the accomplishments this country made with Iraq and the Middle East as a whole, you are telling us that the Democratic Party has abandoned its Moderate 1990’s positions and returned to its anti-American 1970’s roots. Yes, I’m old enough to remember the 1970’s, and I won’t be voting Democrat for as long as the Party looks like the bad old days.
>Cynic – Tax cuts to increase the take home pay of the top 1% Most of them making their money in finance.
Can you back this up with any Data at all? As I recall, the Bush tax cuts were broad based, and not limited to the top 1% of earners. This is quite a stretch. The bottom 40% pays nothing for the bene’s they recieve. As to the majority of the top 1% working in finance, again do you have data to back that up? If you consider that most of the top 1% do significant investing in businesses that they own, or run. I can see that there is finance involved. It’s a falicy to think that most of them are in the “finance” business.
That again begs the question, of if these individuals work hard and earn their own money, why the bottom 40% and the Government, wishing to pay off political favors to the UAW, are entitled to the money of the rest of us, who DO pay taxes. Bottom line is this is a HUGE expanse of government and specifically our governments debt. This limits our freedom and is incredibly unfair to taxpayers. The fraction of a percent of cuts shown in this article wont make much of a difference. When shown against the previous administration, which had a deficit a fraction of the one we are seeing now. They are particulary ridiculous.
Spending per GDP declined under Clinton and the then-fresh and tepidly conservative Republican congress. Unfortunately, power corrupts, and within a few years the Republicans started spending like drunken Democrats. Now we have one party committed to massive government and the party in power committed to unlimited government. There is simply no viable choice for anyone slightly interested in fiscal responsiblity.
Obama and his administration must think American people are so stupid to think he can spend 8 trillion dollars of our hard earned money and say “I am cutting 17 billion” as if we don’t realize it is the same thing as taking a teaspoon to a community pool and taking that much water out, it amounts to that much he is cutting and OF COURSE it is in defense that he cuts, not in studying pig odors, but the part of the budget that protects our country while we are still in a war. This man is a walking idiot and every week I just look forward to seeing what bird brain idea he is trying to go for next. Of course the media will just write about he and his wife walking hand in hand along the golden gates while the true media professionals such as Fox News will let the american people know what is happening to our country under his regime. Why not repeal every single part of the porkulous package that you shoved down our throats as soon as you came into office and that would take a cool trillion off the deficit starting right now, but I don’t think the teleprompter is that educated to figure the math out.
Face it. Benedict Obama’s goal is to bankrupt the nation and gut national defense. He is systematically destroying competing centers of power. He’s a clever man. Evil, but clever. Perhaps the word I’m looking for is devious.
Obama is gutting school choice, He’s attacking religious charities by going after the tax-breaks for donations. Similarly he’s attacking Catholic hospitals.
What happened to the “net spending cut” he promised? Oh yeah, it was just another bald-faced lie. Along with tax cuts for 95% of Americans — unless they use energy, or drive a car, or heat their home, or turn on the lights, etc, etc.