5/23/2011

Is all the debate over a difference of a 4% cut in Federal spending?

The debate in Washington right now is whether government spending over the next decade can be cut by $2 trillion or $4.4 trillion. These sound like big numbers right? In billions of dollars, here are the spending levels planned by President Obama as evaluated by the CBO on March 18th. From 2012 to 2021 in billions:

2012 $3,639 2013 $3,779 2014 $3,954 2015 $4,180 2016 $4,460 2017 $4,661 2018 $4,856 2019 $5,148 2020 $5,412 2021 $5,680. The total over 10 years is $45,770.

Reportedly, Senate Dems:

“are close to agreement on a spending plan that would reduce borrowing by more than $4 trillion over the next decade, with about half the savings coming from higher taxes. That would offer a sharp contrast to the GOP budget, which relies entirely on deep cuts in spending.”


OK, so the $2 trillion cut that Democrats are saying is possible in spending is only 4.37% of spending. And this is after Obama has overseen a massive government spending increase of 28% from 2008 to 2011. The stimulus was just supposed to be temporary. Now we find that all this stimulus on so-called "green" energy and other programs is permanent.

On the left, Ezra Klein explains the reason that Democrats won't release their spending plans here. Ed Morrissey has a response here.

The White House tables are available here.

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