Trump's Budget Guts The Safety Net, And Other Liberal Myths

[SirLinksALot]

SOURCE: INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY

URL: http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/busting-myths-about-trumps-budget/

Big Government: President Trump's budget is taking its share of hits for supposedly indulging in fanciful accounting, unrealistic assumptions and proposing massive cuts to vital safety-net programs. How much of that is true? You decide.

Trump's budget plan proposes to balance the federal budget in 10 years and do so entirely through spending restraint. That alone is enough to raise the hackles of the Washington, D.C., swamp creatures. But critics have other complaints. The main ones:

It relies on unrealistic economic projections. Critics say Trump's budget numbers rest on a rosy scenario of future economic growth. The New York Times describes the economic forecast — in its news story — as "wildly optimistic."

Are they?

It's true that numbers in Trump's economic forecast are rosier than in other long-term forecasts. But that's because Trump expects his policies to increase economic growth.

Even so, Trump's forecast is hardly "wild." In fact, it assumes that annual GDP growth doesn't reach 3% until 2021, and never exceeds it after that. Over the next five years, Trump forecasts GDP growth to average a modest 2.8% a year.

Contrast these projections with the eight budgets Obama put out. In his first budget, Obama forecast GDP growth of 4% in 2011 and 4.6% in 2012. (Actual results: 1.6% and 2.2%). In all his budgets, the five-year GDP growth forecasts averaged 3.3%.

Yet somehow we don't recall budget experts gnashing their teeth about Obama's "wildly optimistic" growth forecasts.

Also, is it unrealistic to expect growth to top out at 3% and remain there for several years? In the past, average annual growth rates, including recessions, were higher than 3%.

MYTH #1: It guts the social safety net. Trump's proposed spending cuts for entitlement programs have been described as "massive," "sweeping," and on the surface, the $1.7 trillion spending cuts Trump proposes look massive.

But these reports always leave out one key fact. Spending on entitlement programs isn't being cut. At least not in the traditional sense of spending less next year than you spend this year. Trump's budget doesn't touch Social Security or Medicare, and only slows the growth of the remaining "safety net" programs.

In fact, the projected 10-year spending for all entitlement programs under Trump's budget would be trimmed by less than 8%. (See the accompanying chart.)

Some analysts say Trump's budget would end up cutting $1.4 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years, because his proposed $610 billion in savings from reforming the program would come on top of the $800 billion proposed cuts contained in the House ObamaCare repeal-and-replace bill. (The budget doesn't spell this out, but does contain a mysterious "allowance for ObamaCare repeal and replace" line item, with annual savings that match up to spending reductions in the House repeal bill.)

If true, that looks like a huge chunk, even from a program slated to spend $5.3 trillion. But keep in mind that states also contribute almost an equal share to Medicaid. In fact, when you combine federal and state spending, Medicaid is forecast to shell out more than $8 trillion over the next decade.

(EXCERPT) CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST....

[SirLinksALot]

Let's talk about the term "CUTS" again.

Is it really a cut in overall spending, or is it simply a cut in spending INCREASE? If the latter, then there are NO CUTS.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that medicaid’s budget is 100 billion. With a proposed increase of 5% which would put the new budget at 105,000,000,000. A proposal is given to cut the increase in half to 2.5%, which means the budget is increasing to 102,500,000,000. Democrats will claim that medicaid is being cut by 2.5 billion ( actually, to make it sound more dire, they'd say that it is being cut IN HALF ). When in reality it’s actually INCREASING by 2.5 billion.

They pull that out that lie every time someone tries to get spending under control and the Republicans allow them to do it. I wonder if Trump is as good a communications man as he claims to be....

[Hoodat]

MYTH #1: It guts the social safety net. Trump's proposed spending cuts for entitlement programs have been described as "massive," "sweeping," and on the surface, the $1.7 trillion spending cuts Trump proposes look massive.

The grand total of all dollars paid in personal income tax does not cover the cost of all entitlements doled out each year.  Yes, it has really gotten that bad.

In other words, every single dollar you pay in income taxes is dedicated towards income redistribution.  Not defense spending.  Not the federal court system. Not the EPA.  Not the highway system.  But a direct payment to another individual.

[Hoodat]

Let's talk about the term "CUTS" again.

Is it really a cut in overall spending, or is it simply a cut in spending INCREASE? If the latter, then there are NO CUTS.

Baseline budgeting needs to end today.  Right now.  Immediately.

[SirLinksALot]

Baseline budgeting needs to end today.  Right now.  Immediately.

 Obama took steps to immediately boost spending in 2009, including pushing through the giant stimulus bill. The CBO has reported that stimulus outlays were $114 billion in 2009.

In Bush’s last budget, he proposed that 2009 spending be $177 billion above the 2008 level, but the actual increase ended up being a massive $386 billion. So you can see that Obama and Congress were mainly responsible for the huge spending leap in 2009, not Bush.

Spending growth in Obama’s first six years:

2009: 13%,
2010: 6%,
2011: 2%,
2012: -3%,
2013: 5%,
2014: 2%

Since Congress holds the purse strings and passes the budget, We ought to ask ourselves who CONTROLLED Congress in 2009 and 2010 and who controlled Congress ( at least one half of the house ) after that.

[Hoodat]

In Bush’s last budget, he proposed that 2009 spending be $177 billion above the 2008 level, but the actual increase ended up being a massive $386 billion. So you can see that Obama and Congress were mainly responsible for the huge spending leap in 2009, not Bush.

To be fair to Bush, his final year budget was passed in two bills.  The first in summer 2008 which carried us into Feb 2009.  The Democrats wanted the ability to rewrite the remainder of the budget once Obama took office.  The second was passed in February 2009 a month after he had already left office.

Subsequently, Democrats then blamed Bush for the massive deficit that resulted from the February 2009 bill, saying that it was part of Bush's last budget.

Democrats are such liars.

A much better reflection would be the 2006 budget, the last one produced by a GOP Congress for a GOP President.  That budget reflected a deficit of $164 billion - an ongoing downward trend in the deficit.  The Democrat's budget only three years later produced a deficit ten times that amount.