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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs
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To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (34810)4/13/2009 7:28:15 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 71588
 

And I asked: WHAT plan(s) is it supposedly a 'decrease' FROM?

From the baseline for future spending embedded in previous plans, contracts, authorized force levels etc.

"...the net effect of which is in some senses a cut and in others an increase"

Doesn't mean or equal

"some parts and some programs are cut, while some parts and programs are increased"

It means that considered in some ways the budget as a whole is being increased, considered in other ways its being decreased. It depends on whether you are comparing it to previous budgets or to what would have been the case without the most recent changes in spending plans and weapons programs to come from the administration.

If for some reason it was only possible to look at budgetary matters one way, to determine if it is a cut or an increase, than I would pick comparing the real dollar spending at one point compared to the real dollar spending at another point. But there isn't any need to look at it in just one way. Comparing to future plans rather than just past spending is at least of secondary importance, and other methods of comparing the cost besides real dollars (percent of GDP, GNP or other measures of national income and/or production, real per capita dollars, perhaps even nominal dollars, percent of government spending, etc.) are also useful at least in certain contexts.

And while I would primarily look at spending by comparing past budgets to new ones (which would mean that Obama is pushing at least small increases in defense spending), that isn't the way social programs are usually measured. Spending can go up by a double digit percentage and the news stories will talk of how programs are cut, or even slashed.
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