Spending to Increase 55 Percent Under Obama's Plan
2:25 PM, Dec 24, 2012
By DANIEL HALPER
Spending will increase 55 percent over the next decade, if President Barack Obama's budget plan goes into effect. The finding comes from the Republican-side of the Senate Budget Committee, which notes that Obama's "Proposal Would Spend $880 Billion Over Already Projected Increases."
Here's a chart, detailing how Obama's plan would bring spending from $3.62 trillion in 2013 to $5.63 trillion in 2022:
The President's last fiscal cliff offer once again increased spending rather than reducing it," writes the minority-side of the Senate Budget Committee. "His plan does claim $800 billion in spending reductions over ten years, but these claims are more than offset by new spending increases: increasing spending above BCA limits ($1,200 billion); paying for the doc fix ($400 billion); new transportation stimulus spending ($50 billion), and; a one-year extension of unemployment insurance ($30 billion). After subtracting the president’s savings from his spending increases, over the next 10 years the President’s proposal actually spends $880 billion more - $44.368 trillion versus $43.488 trillion - than currently projected spending levels. In the next two years alone, the President’s plan would spend $255 billion over current projected spending levels ($156 billion higher in FY13 and $99 billion higher in FY14). Overall, spending would increase 55% under the President’s plan, from $3.6 trillion in FY13 to $ 5.6 trillion in FY22."
On Friday, however, President Obama seemed to suggest he'd be up for a smaller "fiscal cliff" deal. "In the next few days, I've asked leaders of Congress to work towards a package that prevents a tax hike on middle-class Americans, protects unemployment insurance for 2 million Americans, and lays the groundwork for further work on both growth and deficit reduction. That's an achievable goal. That can get done in 10 days. … I want to wish every American a merry Christmas. And because we didn’t get this done, I will see you next week," said Obama.
But, the ranking member, Senator Jeff Sessions, of the Senate Budget Committee contends that nothing has changed.
"President Obama today gave yet another speech about the fiscal cliff," says Sessions. "No plan, nothing that can be scored or analyzed, just another speech. If President Obama wishes to avoid the fiscal cliff then he, with all the power and influence he holds as the leader of this nation, must submit to Congress – in legislative form – a plan that he believes can pass both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support. No more secret meetings and pointless press conferences. Certainly this is not too much to ask. So we await his action: will he move from an unscorable speech to scorable legislation? If he is unwilling to submit such a plan then we may be left with only one persuasive conclusion: that he has used two years of secret meetings with Republican leaders not as an opportunity to achieve fiscal reform, but as a political exercise to defeat his opposition and preserve the expansion of federal spending."
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