Obama Budget: He'll gladly pay you Tuesday for some new spending today
President Barack Obama called on Congress Monday to create an $8 billion fund to train community college students for high-growth industries, giving a financial incentive to schools whose graduates are getting jobs.
The fund was part of Obama’s proposed budget for 2013. The overall package aims to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade by restraining government spending and raising taxes on the wealthy, while boosting spending in some areas, including education.
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| Nothing tastes quite like a federally funded burger |
Thinking about the Obama Administration's record thus far, it is hard not to conclude that for all of the President's rhetorical nods to the deficit and the debt (which are exploding under his stewardship), his baseline spending philosophy is quite straightforward: 'We're only going to be in office so long, and eventually another Republican will come in to cut the budget again - so let's get every damned bit of spending that we can, while we can.'
Look at how the President characterized this latest ($8 billion) new spending proposal today:
"By reducing our deficit in the long term, what that allows us to do is to invest in the things that will help grow our economy right now," Obama said during remarks at Northern Virginia Community College.
So we're going to reduce the deficit "in the long term" by piling on new spending "right now"? This is the J. Wellington Wimpy economic growth model: 'I'll gladly pay you Tuesday (2050) for a new spending program today.'
To harsh? Too trite? Consider:
Sure the deficit is exploding, so what we need to do is pass the single largest spending bill in history. We'll call it the stimulus, and by the alchemy inherent in that nomenclature, it shall stimulate. Or
Sure the deficit is exploding, and that is very important, but not so important as paying as many people as possible to learn how to hang insulation. Or
Sure the deficit is exploding, and that is very, very important, but not so important as the rising cost of college tuition - so we'd better federalize student lending and then spend a bunch of money relieving former students of debt knowingly and willingly incurred. Or
Sure the deficit is exploding, and that is so crucially important, but not so important as taking a huge step toward realizing the long-cherished liberal dream of single-payer health care and in the process creating massive new entitlements. Or
Sure the deficit is exploding, and God, I just cannot tell you how important that is, but not so important as "creating" as many union jobs as possible before the election, so let's just go ahead and increase overall transportation funding by a factor of 50%. Or
Sure the deficit is exploding, and that is unfathomably important, and sure Chevy Volts are exploding too, and that is of ultimate importance to their (infinitesimally small number of) drivers, but not so important as convincing wealthy people to buy electric cars - so naturally we should double down on the massive Volt subsidy program. Or or or...
It goes on and on. Of course assessed in a vacuum, any one of the President's new spending programs purports to serve an end that is noble, desirable and good (jobs, health care, debt relief, energy efficiency...). But individually and collectively they both ignore fiscal reality and make that reality worse.
This is precisely the economic philosophy that many conservatives warned would characterize the administration of a former community organizer, a guy who was consistently rated one of the most - if not the most - liberal members of the US Senate.
In elections as in most things, you get what you pay for. Only now it's increasingly: 'you get what the government pays for.'
You have to make a full, honest accounting. It's shortsighted and misleading to repeatedly insinuate that spending on vital social programs alone increases the deficit significantly. That's not why we're in so much trouble. Again, what about oil subsidies? Tax loopholes written by lobbyists into the tax code for wealthy special interests? Tax rates that wildly favor the rich? Also, a great deal of government spending saves money down the road and protects the public interest. Who is responsible for long-term public planning? The government. Not corporate-owned representatives, not lobbyists, and not ALEC. Those entities plan only for ever-increasing private profit and private wealth. Those are, oddly enough, the same entities who insist on austerity for everyone else, for "starving the beast." We'll stop dividing ourselves between the 1% and the 99% when the 100% play by the same rules: the same laws, the same economic system, and fair taxation: the same justice. I think we all know who could use a little austerity, and it is not the 99%.
Dianna Vosburg | 2012-02-27 15:20:27
First, thanks to both commenters here for using your real names. For some reason, many of those responding to my submissions can't seem to mount the courage to identify themselves. Second, Dan is dead on. I was one of those people who, for a long time, thought "that's an important program and it's not very big in relation to the whole Federal budget; clearly we should be doing this". But when I finally opened my eyes to exactly how much more than we had we were spending, how huge a debt my children will bear for all those "really good ideas" and how the disease of spending beyond our means had infected all levels of government right down to our own little Town of Holliston that has managed to wrack up a $63 million deficit for pensions and health insurance that will also be assessed on our kids, that's when I said enough is enough. Let's stop dividing ourselves between the 1% and the 99% and agree on behalf of the 100% that we do not want to be Greece - even though it seems so inevitable - and stop talking out of both sides of our mouths about reducing the deficit and simultaneously proposing more ways to spend money we don't have. Stick with it Dan!
Bill Dowd | 2012-02-25 10:30:07
Thanks for the comment, Patrick. "Socially useful spending" is a fairly pregnant term, would you not agree? In any event, there is a distinction to be drawn between "spending cuts" and "spending restraint." The first rule of holes again.
Dan Haley | 2012-02-25 09:26:47
Mr. Haley rails against education, green energy, technology advancement and other socially useful spending. And, as Dianna points out, aptly ignores many elephants in the room while scurrying after dust motes. What we have known for a very long time, and has been recently demonstrated yet again in Europe, is that austerity and spending cuts alone do not allow for rapid economic recovery. In fact, they extend the crisis. The Austrian economics that Mr Haley evidently hews to are, in fact, the best known mechanism for deepening that "hole" he refers to, while having the added benefit of concentrating the sacrifice on the 99%.
Patrick Bolger | 2012-02-25 06:26:17
Thanks Dianna, for the thoughtful comment. Looks like you ran afoul of the word limit (I'm frequently guilty of the same transgression). While obviously I'd quibble with some of your characterizations of other government spending, of course you are correct that the items I chose to highlight did not themselves cause the deficit or the debt, or even a large part of it (stimulus and health care "reform" definitely excepted). My point - perhaps not made clear enough - is that the current President and many (of both parties) in Congress seem intent on ignoring the first rule of holes: when you are in one, stop digging. Money is fungible - it is impossible to say 'this spending adds to the deficit / that spending is "good." It is indisputable, though, that without some spending restraint our problems are going to get worse, not better.
Dan Haley | 2012-02-24 15:27:03
Interesting article, but it left me pondering: why is the deficit exploding? Because we are going to spend a small amount of federal money on a critical national need: education, which will lead to jobs, innovation, and further growth? Or other investments in infrastructure, alternative energy programs, or efficiency? Those are things in which we definitely should invest--if we want a viable future. Economic collapse, environmental degradation and climate change, lack of job training and education, and crumbling infrastructure do not lead to prosperity. This article forgets to analyze the real source of our exploding deficit, or real solutions to it. The deficit is exploding because of the real entitlement programs: those that advance the interests of the powerful monied elite and their corporations. Where is the rant against fossil fuel subsidies, which far outweigh the subsidies for green energy? Where is the rant against tax loopholes that allow corporations to receive tax refunds on billion dollar profits, and the rich to stash their money in tax havens? Or the huge Defense budget? Those are far more expensive and far less productive than subsidies and investments that actually serve the public good. Also, I'm perplexed as to why on earth we would wait for a Republican president to rein in the deficit by cutting the budget. Because they've been so economically successful the past in creating balanced budgets? Actually, Republican administrations, like the Bush Administration, raise the deficit: Bush did it through unpaid-for wars (one based on a pack of lies) and absurd tax breaks for the rich. Half of our current deficit is due to these tax cuts and the wars. After we've seen what deregulation, tax policies that favor the wealthy, privatization of vital government functions, cutting of vital social services, and corruption of government have done to our country, one would think that economic neo-liberalism would be thoroughly discredited. This theory was
Dianna Vosburg | 2012-02-24 12:00:18