I am talking about his proposal to cut spending that he made to Boehner which Boehner rejected because it included letting the Bush's tax cuts to the rich to finally end:
Obama Proposes Cutting $4 Trillion From Deficit in 12 Years
I'm not disputing he made that offer. I know he said it. I've seen it from a lot of sources. Repeating the fact that he said it is useless. I know he did, and also its irrelevant to the point.
I'm not even disputing it seriousness (in this conversation, in reality I think it should be disputed but for the sake of argument I'm assume he meant it and would have fought hard to make it happen).
I'm talking about the reality of what's meant by many in DC (Obama included, but its not just him, and not just Democrats), when they talk about cuts. $4tril in cuts over 10 years is $400bil a year. If we are spending $3.7 tril a year (the 2012 estimate), a $400bil cut means we would be spending $3.3 tril a year. But Obama isn't supporting spending $3.3tril, he wants to spend more than $3.7tril. 10 years from now his budget projections would have us spend more than $5tril. How does that get counted as a cut? Obama (and the majority of other politicians) figures that if we where going to spend $5.5 tril, then only spending $5tril is a cut. But that's nonsense. $5tril is a lot more than $3.7tril. Even if you want to adjust for inflation, $5tril is an increase unless inflation is rather strong over that period. And if inflation is strong, then following the current plan under the budget agreement (to the extent its a real plan rather than "we'll let the supercomittee decide), or any plan or projection release by Obama, then spending won't be as "low" as $5tril, because the COLAs would bring it up.
Its not so much an anti-Obama point, Obama is just one of many examples of politicians who talk this way, a majority of politicians, even a majority of Republican politicians give us this garbage. They talk about harsh cuts, and then spending goes up. |
