Fiscal Fiction In D.C.
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Gary [email protected]
That's what always gets tossed around in Washington around budget time.
If it wasn't so serious, it would be amusing.
The "conservatives" in the W administration seem to be some of the best at crafting fiscal fiction.
As the 2,000-plus pages of the 2007 budget - released early this month - are scrutinized, more and more of the fiction becomes apparent.
It's nice to make the budget appear in balance, even if the administration knows it isn't.
Again, if not so tragic, it would be humorous.
Here's a quote from the W. It appears on the budget cover letter: "The budget I am presenting achieves balance by 2012."
That sounds really good. But the problem is, it is nowhere close to the truth.
Not that it couldn't be close to the truth. But given the realities in Washington, I and everybody else even remotely interested knows it isn't true.
The budget is so full of half-truths, gimmicks and bogus accounting, there's no way to know for sure how much red ink there will be. But one thing is certain: Red ink there will be.
One small example of the way our government does business with regard to its budget is the Veterans Administration funding.
The White House is assuming that the cost of veterans' health care will decline.
Here's Associated Press on that issue: 'Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly - by more than 10 percent in many years - White House budget documents assume consecutive cutbacks in 2009 and 2010 and a freeze thereafter.'
As bizarre as it may seem that the budget reflects such cutbacks, even more bizarre is the fact that nobody really believes it to be true.
Here's what one Republican Senate aide told AP: 'No one who is knowledgeable about ... budgeting issues anticipates any cuts to VA funding. None. Zero. Zip.'
AP goes on to report that, as wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan - some 35,000 of them - come home, VA funding will rise considerably.
AP says that by 2012, the year the White House says the budget will be in balance, veterans' medical care will cost at least $16 billion more per year than the administration's make-believe estimate.
And this is one tiny example. There are more jarring, glaring examples of fiscal chicanery.
David Broder recently wrote a column in which he interviewed Rep. Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat who has long been a crusader for fiscal sanity in Washington.
Cooper told Broder W reaches the $61 billion surplus he claims for 2012 by using $248 billion in anticipated Social Security surpluses that year to wipe out a $187 billion government deficit.
And this after exhausting every other budgetary gimmick known to man to get to the $187 billion.
Now, we all know what a Social Security "surplus" is. It's money already earmarked for future benefits payable to people like, well, me.
So if those funds are borrowed to achieve budget surplus, they'll have to be replenished with higher taxes in the future or cuts in benefits to people like, well, me.
Cooper also told Broder about how Medicare premiums will have to increase 5X to sustain the program at current levels of health care inflation.
W proposes $66 billion in savings over the next five years. He wants to cut payments to providers and hike premiums for the wealthy.
But Demos are balking because of all the talk about balanced budgets. Why whittle away at entitlements if there's no budget problems?
Cooper says W's optimism will keep Congress from acting responsibly on entitlement issues.
Then there's the debt.
In 2006, the total federal debt was $8.45 trillion.
W optimistically estimates that by 2012, that number will grow to $11.5 trillion.
And as the debt rises, foreign holdings of U.S. government securities increase. They've more than doubled in the last five years, to more than $2.1 trillion.
We owe Japan and China the most and the U.S. is the world's largest borrower.
So what happens when euro and the pound get stronger against the dollar? What happens when the dollar is no longer an attractive investment to foreign governments?
That's when the U.S. winds up with a third-world economy like Argentina. That's when we'll all be eating cold pork and beans straight from the can.
And all the while, the U.S. treasury has collected record amounts of revenue - exceeding $2.15 trillion in fiscal 2005. So how can we have debt problems?
Because government spends it all and then some. It's crazy.
Why can't our esteemed leaders see the obvious?
They're collecting plenty of money from us. They just need to stop spending so much.[[In-content Ad]]
That's what always gets tossed around in Washington around budget time.
If it wasn't so serious, it would be amusing.
The "conservatives" in the W administration seem to be some of the best at crafting fiscal fiction.
As the 2,000-plus pages of the 2007 budget - released early this month - are scrutinized, more and more of the fiction becomes apparent.
It's nice to make the budget appear in balance, even if the administration knows it isn't.
Again, if not so tragic, it would be humorous.
Here's a quote from the W. It appears on the budget cover letter: "The budget I am presenting achieves balance by 2012."
That sounds really good. But the problem is, it is nowhere close to the truth.
Not that it couldn't be close to the truth. But given the realities in Washington, I and everybody else even remotely interested knows it isn't true.
The budget is so full of half-truths, gimmicks and bogus accounting, there's no way to know for sure how much red ink there will be. But one thing is certain: Red ink there will be.
One small example of the way our government does business with regard to its budget is the Veterans Administration funding.
The White House is assuming that the cost of veterans' health care will decline.
Here's Associated Press on that issue: 'Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly - by more than 10 percent in many years - White House budget documents assume consecutive cutbacks in 2009 and 2010 and a freeze thereafter.'
As bizarre as it may seem that the budget reflects such cutbacks, even more bizarre is the fact that nobody really believes it to be true.
Here's what one Republican Senate aide told AP: 'No one who is knowledgeable about ... budgeting issues anticipates any cuts to VA funding. None. Zero. Zip.'
AP goes on to report that, as wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan - some 35,000 of them - come home, VA funding will rise considerably.
AP says that by 2012, the year the White House says the budget will be in balance, veterans' medical care will cost at least $16 billion more per year than the administration's make-believe estimate.
And this is one tiny example. There are more jarring, glaring examples of fiscal chicanery.
David Broder recently wrote a column in which he interviewed Rep. Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat who has long been a crusader for fiscal sanity in Washington.
Cooper told Broder W reaches the $61 billion surplus he claims for 2012 by using $248 billion in anticipated Social Security surpluses that year to wipe out a $187 billion government deficit.
And this after exhausting every other budgetary gimmick known to man to get to the $187 billion.
Now, we all know what a Social Security "surplus" is. It's money already earmarked for future benefits payable to people like, well, me.
So if those funds are borrowed to achieve budget surplus, they'll have to be replenished with higher taxes in the future or cuts in benefits to people like, well, me.
Cooper also told Broder about how Medicare premiums will have to increase 5X to sustain the program at current levels of health care inflation.
W proposes $66 billion in savings over the next five years. He wants to cut payments to providers and hike premiums for the wealthy.
But Demos are balking because of all the talk about balanced budgets. Why whittle away at entitlements if there's no budget problems?
Cooper says W's optimism will keep Congress from acting responsibly on entitlement issues.
Then there's the debt.
In 2006, the total federal debt was $8.45 trillion.
W optimistically estimates that by 2012, that number will grow to $11.5 trillion.
And as the debt rises, foreign holdings of U.S. government securities increase. They've more than doubled in the last five years, to more than $2.1 trillion.
We owe Japan and China the most and the U.S. is the world's largest borrower.
So what happens when euro and the pound get stronger against the dollar? What happens when the dollar is no longer an attractive investment to foreign governments?
That's when the U.S. winds up with a third-world economy like Argentina. That's when we'll all be eating cold pork and beans straight from the can.
And all the while, the U.S. treasury has collected record amounts of revenue - exceeding $2.15 trillion in fiscal 2005. So how can we have debt problems?
Because government spends it all and then some. It's crazy.
Why can't our esteemed leaders see the obvious?
They're collecting plenty of money from us. They just need to stop spending so much.[[In-content Ad]]
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