President Barack Obama’s top budget officials are trying to deflect questions about debt and deficits, especially because his latest 10-year spending plan would boost government spending more than $1 trillion above the deficit-trimming deal that he signed in August.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and budget director Jeff Zients, this week hunched down to divert numerous requests to acknowledge that their boss’ 10-year plan increases spending above the level he accepted and applauded last August.
It’s “a rope-a-dope performance worthy of Muhammad Ali,” said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the lead Republican on the Democratic-dominated Senate Budget Committee.
Their evasiveness is caused by their boss’ campaign-trail desire to claim that he is cutting spending more than he increases taxes, Sessions told The Daily Caller.
“In their budget rollout, they said they were making tough cuts in spending, that for every one dollar in tax increases they were achieving two dollars and 50 cents in spending cuts, and that they were going to reduce the [10-year] deficit by $4 trillion — all of which are stunningly false,” Sessions said.
The 10-year spending plan is delivered to Congress alongside the one-year budget request. Obama’s request asks for $3.8 trillion to spend between September 2012 to October 2013. That request includes $901 billion in borrowed funds.
The bogus claims in Obama’s 10-year plan are disproved by his own budget documents, Sessions said. (RELATED: Full coverage of the Obama presidency)
The deception is so crude that even the established media may highlight the hoax, he said. “This is such an overreach, and it is so critically important that the press tell the American people about the debt danger, it would be very important for it to be reported aggressively by the press,” he said.
Even Geithner acknowledged the growing danger posed by trillion-dollar annual deficits. “You are right on that, and I commend you for it,” Geithner said Feb. 16, “in saying that even if Congress were to enact this budget, we would still be left with, in the outer decades as millions of Americans retire, what are still unsustainable commitments in Medicare and Medicaid.”
However, Geithner dodged Sessions’ questions about the 10-year spending total.
“Is it not true that this [10-year] budget spends more money than [August] law?” Sessions asked Geithner Thursday.
“Let me try and answer it this way,” Geithner responded. “We propose to reduce the budget deficit to below 3 percent of GDP over the budget window. … I know that we disagree. … I’d be happy to respond in writing. … We do some things considerably better.”
Zients appeared before the committee Feb. 13, and also evaded Session’ repeated questions.
“Does your plan spend more money over the next ten years that the [August] agreement?” Sessions asked.
“What we’ve got to focus on here is the bottom line,” Zients responded. “We’re taking deficits down to 2.8 percent of GDP. … I’m suggesting that our budget is a more honest budget. … It’s a more accurate reflection of what we’re going to spend,” he continued, without answering Sessions’ question.
During his four-year term, Obama will have spent roughly 6.4 trillion dollars in deficit spending — including $1.33 trillion in 2012 — and will have driven the nation’s debt up to $16 trillion.
The Obama’s administration’s budget plan is built on several tricks, Sessions said. They distract people from noticing that the president’s 10-year, $47 trillion spending plan would increase spending total by $1.5 trillion, and the national debt by $11 trillion, he said.
The administration claims it cuts the 10-year deficit by $4 trillion, down to $7 trillion, partly by assuming that Congress agrees to impose $2 trillion in job-killing tax increases.
Even if Congress does impose those taxes, and even if they don’t slow economic growth, other hidden spending increases in the 10-year budget plan would eat up most of the extra taxes, Session said. Those hidden spending increases would ensure that the $11 trillion, 10-year accumulated deficit would be trimmed by only $273 billion, he said.
Obama’s plan also assumes that the tax increase will stop $1.2 trillion in sequestered spending-cuts agreed to during the August budget deal, dubbed the Budget Control Act. However, Obama’s spending plan does not acknowledge that canceled spending cuts means that the un-canceled spending would occur.
The administration is also claiming an unrealistic level of future Afghan military spending so that it can be cut to generate imaginary spending cuts worth $1 trillion, Sessions said. Moreover, that money would have to be borrowed, so a decision to not borrow it does not cut spending, he said.
The administration also hides other spending, such the so-called “Doc fix” that periodically corrects a flawed formula for calculating medical spending. A 10-year “Doc fix” will likely cost roughly $522 billion, but is not recognized in the 10-year spending plan.
Other analysts say Obama’s 10-year budget plan boosts likely tax receipts by exaggerating future economic growth. If growth is slower than predicted, deficits and debt will be greater, they say.
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