Liberals' Misleading Budget Boast

If you have listened to Obama recently I'm sure you have heard his claim that he will cut the federal budget deficit in half in the next 10 years. Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader, says the same thing in this opinion in the Wall Street Journal. While there are many things in it that I disagree with, such as the government is the only thing that can end the recession, I am going to stay on task and talk about this misleading claim.

Obama's budget proposes to increase the federal budget deficit to a record $1.75 trillion. Then he plans to cut that deficit in half to $570 billion in 2014. For comparison, the deficit in 2008 was $459 billion. So Obama isn't really cutting the budget deficit in half in 10 years, he is actually increasing the deficit. He is only cutting it from his record high.

If we look at other estimates, the Congressional Budget Office projects halved budget deficits in the next 4 to 5 years but then an increasing budget deficit until in 2019 they project a deficit of $1.2 trillion, far above the President's rosy projections. In addition, the CBO projects the national debt to increase from $7 billion to $12 billion in the next four years, but hey, that is only a 71% increase.

So while Rep. Hoyer may talk a good game about being a budget hawk and fiscally conservative he certainly doesn't back it up. He uses the same misleading figures that the President does and is willing to back the President's overspending. If he were really concerned about the deficit and the debt he would back the Republicans' alternative budget plan.

Finally, does anybody believe that politicians will do anything about entitlement programs? Of course not, it is political suicide. They have wasted every opportunity to fix the impending problems but have not done so out of fear for their job. They are more concerned about keeping their jobs than making the hard decisions to fix the mess that they have made. Maybe term limits would help, I don't know, but I do know it is time for politicians to start putting the country's interests above their own job interests.