Washingtonexaminer.com
House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan R-Wis. left and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor R-Va. center and others walk to a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Monday Aug. 1 2011. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Conservatives won a clear but qualified victory by standing strong for principle and pushing President Obama and Senate Democrats to agree to a spending-cuts-only deal in return for Republicans accepting the biggest single increase ever in the debt limit.
While raising the federal governments debt ceiling used to be a mere formality a landmark precedent has now been established that added borrowing authority must be accompanied by spending cuts. That said lets not pretend that Washingtons spending addiction has been licked.
Unfortunately Obama is doing exactly that in his quest to win a second term in 2012. To hear Obama tell it the result would be the lowest level of annual domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was president. If you wonder how such a jaw-dropping claim could be true its not. According to the Obama White Houses own numbers the Eisenhower administration spent an inflation-adjusted $327 billion on nondefense spending in its last fiscal year 1961. This year the Obama administration will spend over $3.7 trillion more than 40 percent of which will be borrowed from China and others.
Can Obama defend such a startling claim? It turns out that he has made a similar claim before. In February Obama said a proposed spending freeze would bring domestic discretionary spending to its lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president.
Did you spot the difference? By adding the word discretionary to domestic spending Obama cut the three biggest causes of our annual deficits out of the picture. The mandatory spending programs Medicare and Medicaid didnt even exist in 1961 and Social Security spending was comparatively negligible at the time. Today these three programs account for more than 40 percent of all federal spending.
Regardless of why Obama forgot to add the word discretionary to his lowest level of annual domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower claim his statement on Sunday night is still highly misleading. At best the debt limit deal is a Band-Aid being applied to a gushing head wound. In its first phase the deal cuts $900 billion in spending over the next decade.
The big three entitlement programs will cost more than $2 trillion this year alone. The entire debt deal is supposed to reduce the debt by $2.1 trillion over 10 years. The big three entitlement programs will spend more than $26 trillion during that same time. Without the debt deal by 2021 the national debt would still be $18.2 trillion. With the deal that total only drops to $16.1 trillion. (See the Charticle on page 28.)
Finally the deal creates a Super Congress committee of 12 members tasked with finding an additional $1.2 trillion in spending cuts. But Congress already has no less than four standing committees charged with such duty: the House and Senate budget and appropriations committees. Clearly Washington still hasnt learned that mere promises are no solution for our nations spending problems. This deal must work as promised or there will be hell to pay in November 2012.
