That means there will be less spending next year then there was last year.
No it means no such thing. You've been duped by the talk of "cuts". Its understandable as almost everyone in politics uses the term when referring to reductions in the rate of growth, and the media almost never call them on it. At best you might have one year or so with roughly flat spending, but even that's unlikely, and at the end of 10 years spending will certainly be up. With entitlements there is no way for it to be otherwise, unless you eliminate COLAs, quickly raise retirement ages, or just hand less money out to retirees or for medical care.
Its possible (if not highly likely) that "discretionary" (in quotes because all spending except maybe interest on debt, and even that to a limited extent is discretionary) might be down, but total spending will continue to climb. That's what's happened every time the government has pushed out "cuts". Frequently even the reductions in the rate of growth get fudged or dropped and never happen, but when they do, you don't get a top line cut.
You don't like a lot of my sources, show your own, not a source saying Obama offered "cuts", but an source showing top line spending under any Obama plan or under the recent agreement. You won't find any source that shows the numbers getting smaller year after year, because they get larger. |
