I’ve repeatedly tried to expose pervasive fiscal dishonesty in Washington.
In these John Stossel and Judge Napolitano interviews, for instance, I explain that the crooks in DC have created a system that allows them to claim they’re cutting the budget when the burden of government spending actually is rising.
This sleazy system is designed in part to deceive the American people, and the current squabbling over the fiscal cliff is a good example. The President claims he has a “balanced approach” that involves budget cuts, but look at the second chart at this link and you will see that he’s really proposing bigger government.
This dishonest approach also was used by the President’s Fiscal Commission and last year’s crummy debt limit deal was based on this form of fiscal prevarication.
Here are some key excerpts from a Wall Street Journal editorial exposing this scam.
…President Obama and John Boehner are playing by the dysfunctional Beltway rules. The rules work if you like bigger government, but Republicans need a new strategy, which starts by exposing the rigged game of “baseline budgeting.” …numbers have no real meaning because they are conjured in the wilderness of mirrors that is the federal budget process. Since 1974, Capitol Hill’s “baseline” has automatically increased spending every year according to Congressional Budget Office projections, which means before anyone has submitted a budget or cast a single vote. Tax and spending changes are then measured off that inflated baseline, not in absolute terms. …Democrats designed this system to make it easier to defend annual spending increases and to portray any reduction in the baseline as a spending “cut.” Chris Wallace called Timothy Geithner on this “gimmick” on “Fox News Sunday” this week, only to have the Treasury Secretary insist it’s real. …in the current debate the GOP is putting itself at a major disadvantage by negotiating off the phony baseline. …If Republicans really want to slow the growth in spending, they need to stop playing by Beltway rules and start explaining to America why Mr. Obama keeps saying he’s cutting spending even as spending and deficits keep going up and up and up.
But let’s return to the American fiscal situation. Republicans almost certainly will lose the battle over the fiscal cliff because they meekly are playing cards with a rigged deck controlled by the other side.
They should expose this scam by using nominal numbers and looking at year-over-year changes in both taxes and spending. I did that last year and showed how simple it is to balance the budget in a short period of time.
They key thing to understand is that (barring a recession) tax revenues rise every year. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office projects that tax revenue will climb by an average of more than 6 percent annually over the next 10 years – even if the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are made permanent.
So all that’s really needed to bring red ink under control is a modest bit of spending restraint. This video is from 2010, but the analysis is still completely relevant today.
It’s amazing how good things happen when you follow the Golden Rule of fiscal policy.
[…] I’ve had no success in trying to convince Washington politicians that they shouldn’t lie about the definition of a budget cut, so it’s probably a lost cause to get them to copy […]
[…] decades (literally), I’ve maintained that make-believe budget cuts are the biggest form of budgetary dishonesty in Washington. But this John Stossel video discusses another scam politicians use to squander more […]
[…] decades (literally), I’ve maintained that make-believe budget cuts are the biggest form of budgetary dishonesty in Washington. But this John Stossel video discusses another scam politicians use to squander more […]
[…] decades (literally), I’ve maintained that make-believe budget cuts are the biggest form of budgetary dishonesty in Washington. But this John Stossel video discusses another scam politicians use to squander more […]
[…] while I’ve pontificated about this issue in the past (three times in 2011and two times in 2012), it’s definitely time for a refresher […]
[…] while I’ve pontificated about this issue in the past (three times in 2011and two times in 2012), it’s definitely time for a refresher […]
[…] pontificated about this issue in the past (three times in 2011and two times in 2012), it’s definitely time for a refresher […]
[…] while I’ve pontificated about this issue in the past (three times in 2011and two times in 2012), it’s definitely time for a refresher […]
[…] while I’ve pontificated about this issue in the past (three times in 2011 and two times in 2012), it’s definitely time for a refresher […]
[…] definitely were huge spending cuts (the real kind, not the fake kind) during those years, and big deficits also became big […]
[…] showing that he actually cut spending (and we’re looking at genuine spending cuts, not the make-believe spending cuts that happen in DC when politicians boost the budget by less than previously […]
[…] deal. That’s bad news, but the worse news is that the other 50 percent of the budget deal isn’t even genuine spending cuts. Instead, all we get is reductions (often illusory or transitory) in previously planned increases. […]
[…] the simple reason that the budget process in Washington is pervasively dishonest, as I’ve explained in interviews with John Stossel and Judge Napolitano. Here are the three […]
[…] the simple reason that the budget process in Washington is pervasively dishonest, as I’ve explained in interviews with John Stossel and Judge Napolitano. Here are the three […]
[…] problems can be addressed only if there’s a package deal of tax increases and spending cuts (dishonestly defined). Such an outcome is theoretically possible, but entirely unrealistic. Tax increases almost surely […]
[…] some advice for South Windsor Democrats. Adopt D.C.-type budgeting and build in a “baseline” showing 5 percent annual tax increases. Then, when you “only” raise taxes by 1.9 […]
[…] political elite like this dodgy game because they can pretend they are fiscal responsible while simultaneously making government […]
[…] The video also exposed the dishonest way that budgets are presented in […]
[…] I try not to get too agitated about media bias, but I sometimes get “triggered” when the deliberate inaccuracies involve economic issues. And I get really irked when reporters write about non-existent spending cuts. […]
[…] I try not to get too agitated about media bias, but I sometimes get “triggered” when the deliberate inaccuracies involve economic issues. And I get really irked when reporters write about non-existent spending cuts. […]
[…] the spending cuts likely will be either phony (reductions in planned increases, just like they do it in Washington) or will quickly evaporate. But the higher taxes will be real and permanent. Just […]
[…] the spending cuts likely will be either phony (reductions in planned increases, just like they do it in Washington) or will quickly evaporate. But the higher taxes will be real and permanent. Just […]
[…] Incidentally, we don’t need to “dramatically cut” those programs. The authors are relying on dishonest Washington budget math. […]
[…] merely proposing to limit annual spending increases. Yet this counts as a “cut” in the upside-down world of Washington […]
[…] and discussed in Washington. Simply stated, almost everyone starts with a “baseline” of big, pre-determined annual spending increases and they whine and wail about “cuts” if spending doesn’t climb as fast as previously […]
[…] and discussed in Washington. Simply stated, almost everyone starts with a “baseline” of big, pre-determined annual spending increases and they whine and wail about “cuts” if spending doesn’t climb as fast as […]
[…] Exposing Washington’s Dishonest Budget Math […]
Just another effort by an ever expanding government to get into our pockets more.
[…] the good news about sequestration is that the savings are real, unlike the gimmicks that you get when the politicians are in charge of “cutting” […]
[…] the good news about sequestration is that the savings are real, unlike the gimmicks that you get when the politicians are in charge of “cutting” […]
[…] John Stossel and Judge Napolitano interviews, the politicians and interest groups have given us a budget process that assumes ever-increasing spending levels, which then allows them to make hysterical claims about “savage” and […]
[…] in the room. It turns out that all the hyperbole and hysteria about the sequester is based on the dishonest Washington definition of a budget cut – i.e., when spending doesn’t rise as fast as projected in some artificial […]
[…] Exposing Washington’s Dishonest Budget Math […]
I wish those jerks in Washington could tell the truth at least some of the time.
[…] Exposing Washington’s Dishonest Budget Math […]
I will talk about this tonight on my radio show in NH and post it at my news site. Keep spreading the message. Logic and math will come into play once they can’t hide the debt anymore.Thank you Dan for the post.
[…] Exposing Washington’s Dishonest Budget Math […]
I’ve recently started reading Mr Mitchell’s columns here. I’ve started sharing them with friends and on Facebook. We all need to continue spreading the fire of liberty and economic sanity! Even a large fire started as a little flame as some point.
Mr. Schleifer, you have made a critical point about small voices. The real question we should be considering is how to increase the volume of that voice or add more voices singing the same song. The collectivists essentially own the educational system from top to bottom as well as most of the media. Mr. Mitchell’s singing in the wilderness might be music, but if no one is there to hear it, …?
How do we connect that same music with more ears?
How many times have you written almost this exact blog, Dan? We’ve been talking about Washington’s dishonest math for how many decades? Here’s one of my favorites: we had a surplus under Clinton. Really? How much money did we borrow from the so-called Social Security trust fund in order to have a so-called surplus.
Well, keep trying, though you are a small, still voice, crying in the wilderness.