The Heritage Foundation’s Amanda Reinecker lays bare the charade of President Obama’s so-called spending freeze:
A Grim Fiscal Forecast
February 2, 2010 | By Amanda Reinecker
“In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama vowed that his administration would enforce a three-year spending freeze to help dig the country out of a ‘massive fiscal hole.’ But the President’s spending freeze would only apply to one-eighth of all spending and save a mere $15 billion. That’s just a drop in the bucket, especially considering the $3.8 trillion 2011 budget proposal the White House released on Monday. According to these figures, freeze or no freeze, that ‘massive fiscal hole’ is about to get much deeper.
The President’s new budget commits the nation to ‘trillions more in spending than taxpayers can afford,’ points out Heritage Foundation budget policy analyst Brian Riedl. $2 trillion more, to be exact. With all this new spending, the ‘freeze’ will do little to address the record budget deficit projected for fiscal 2010. In fact, the deficit will continue to hover at levels not seen since World War II for the next ten years.
Instead of real solutions, the budget proposal offers more of the same (operative word “more”). As Heritage’s Conn Carroll explains, it is ‘full of billions of dollars in new spending, for failed government programs, higher taxes on American families and businesses, and deficit spending for as far as the eye can see.’
These aggressive spending measures would be unaffordable even during good budget times. Rather than attempting to spend its way out of debt, which is an inherently flawed concept, Riedl suggests that the federal government adopt some genuine spending reforms. These would include:
Taking back leftover funds from TARP and the failed stimulus bill;
Enacting tough spending caps — not temporary spending freezes — to help lawmakers prioritize where money is allocated;
Disclosing the massive unfunded obligations of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and outline long-term budgets for these programs;
Reforming entitlement programs, which currently present the greatest domestic challenge our nation faces.
‘Currently, the President’s budget does nothing to address the nation’s serious short-term and long-term fiscal problems — and indeed makes them worse,’ writes Riedl. Though not easy, Riedl’s proposed reforms would permanently reduce the deficit and present a better alternative to record government and enormous tax increases.”
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Best Of the Web, Budgets, Obama Presidency