Well, I wasn’t planning of having 2 of these posts in a row be about Obama, but I guess the President is always an easy target.
President Obama claims that his 2010 budget will save American taxpayers $2 trillion over the next 10 years… $2 trillion compared to what? His numbers all depend on what the baseline is. According to Politifact, it appears Obama’s stretching the numbers, and rates his claim as “barely true”.
Keep in mind that the deficit is a number that reflects income minus expenses over the course of a single year…
When we talk about the deficit getting “smaller,” though, you have to ask “smaller compared to what?”
The answer: smaller than it would have been without Obama’s proposed changes…
Obama’s critics contend he’s inflating the baseline. In particular, they say, Obama claims we would have spent a pile of money on “overseas contingency operations,” which means the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama’s budget then posits that he wouldn’t spend that much money…
“It’s the equivalent to assuming an expensive vacation, then not taking it, and saying you’ve cut your family’s budget,” he (Brian Riedl) said. “To claim savings off that baseline is ridiculous.”
The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities… said a more realistic number for deficit savings was $900 billion, a little less than half of Obama’s estimate.
… Obama’s budget increases revenues by letting the Bush tax cuts expire… The Obama budget document shows a deficit reduction of $636 billion over 10 years from those tax increases.
You can read the entire article HERE.
