Politico...
Budget surplus to
deficit: How we got here
By David Rogers
5/20/11
It’s a crude but fair summary of the two presidents based on new data
mapping how the nation moved from surpluses in 2001 to record deficits
over the past decade. And it takes on special meaning given the turmoil
these days in the Senate, whether in producing a budget, salvaging
months of work by the bipartisan Gang of Six or expanding the
Treasury’s borrowing authority to avert default.
For Republicans, the new numbers — compiled by the Congressional Budget
Office — bolster the GOP’s argument that President Barack Obama has
gone well past Bush’s hearty appetite for new spending. But for
Democrats, the same equation underscores the fact that the growth in
discretionary appropriations since 2001 has been matched almost dollar
for dollar by a series of tax cuts that were also expanded under Obama.
“Starve the beast is the worst kind of diet,” an administration
official joked when told of the numbers. “It shows the beast eats more.”
Indeed, from 2002 through 2011, CBO estimates that the combined tax
cuts enacted by successive Congresses cost $2.8 trillion, even as
increased appropriations added $2.95 trillion above projections for
discretionary spending.
Breaking down these numbers for the eight years under Bush, the annual
average was almost identical: Tax cuts cost an extra $230 billion a
year, as did appropriations. From 2009 through 2011, under Obama, extra
spending ramped up to $495 billion, but tax cuts — measured against
CBO’s 2001 baseline — also jumped to about $430 billion per year on
average.
Democrats wince at Obama’s record here, and with Treasury having hit
the federal debt ceiling this week, they want new revenues to be part
of any bargain that will surely cut from their spending priorities.
Republican leaders are insisting on no new revenues and appear content
to have a shorter extension of Treasury’s borrowing authority if it
gives them a second bite at Obama’s domestic appropriations — as well
as limited savings from government benefit programs and retirement
payments to federal workers.
This is a risky strategy because it ensures a second debt vote for
House members before they run in 2012. But the politics are such that
this may be inevitable in any case, and Republicans want to avoid a
repeat of the government shutdown fight that already consumed so much
of this year.
This explains why Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was so
insistent at the White House last week that before any debt ceiling
vote, he wants annual caps on appropriations decided for fiscal 2012,
beginning Oct. 1, as well as 2013. At the same time, McConnell signaled
that any grand bargain — when revenues and tax reform might come back
into play — would be pushed back past the immediate August deadline.
“My greatest fear is a minimalist deal,” Senate Budget Committee
Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) told POLITICO, and rather than proceed
with a markup before Memorial Day, he announced Thursday that he will
wait to see what the White House talks led by Vice President Joe Biden
produce.
Read the rest of the story at Politico
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