Even liberals find the White House Budget rhetoric over the top

Here is the Washington Post evaluation of the Obama administration's rhetoric about spending cuts in the House GOP payroll tax bill.

“Their proposal ... makes harmful cuts to things like education, that strengthen middle-class security. Their plan seeks to put the burden on working families, while giving a free pass to the wealthiest and big corporations, by protecting their loopholes and subsidies.”

--White House spokesman Jay Carney, Dec. 9, 2011 . . .

But no matter where you look in the CBO score, you cannot find cuts for education, energy or veterans. So how does the White House justify this claim?

At the bottom of Table 1 of the CBO report, there is a line regarding changes in spending subject to “caps on discretionary funding.” That shows a reduction in outlays of about $9 billion over five years and $26 billion over 10 years.

House Republicans say they wanted to capture the savings from a proposed one-year freeze in federal employee wages. The freeze would amount to about $1.2 billion in one year, but over time the freeze builds up savings because all future salaries would increase from a lower base. . . .

In a stunning leap of logic, the White House claims that it knows this reduction in spending will fall on education, clean energy and veterans programs. House Republicans did not reduce the defense side of the ledger, even though civilian Pentagon salaries are affected, giving some credence to the White House focus on such programs. But, still, the White House has no idea how future Congresses will write the budget, especially 10 years from now.

Moreover, the money is almost a rounding error in the context of the federal budget. The nondefense discretionary budget will be $5 trillion to $6 trillion over the next 10 years, so this amounts to perhaps one-half of one percent of that amount — even if you accept the White House line that this law will mean additional cuts. . . .

Administration officials say that Carney was merely offering an illustrative list of what could be cut, but it certainly did not sound like that. He spoke with certainty, decrying the “burden on working families” that would result from the House GOP bill. . . .