State Dept-Went from $35 billion to $53.4 billion-34% increase
Energy-Went from $24.3 billion to $42.3 billion-42% increase
Agriculture-Went from $20.2 billion to $28.8 billion-29% increase
Transportation-Went from $12.1 billion to $25.6 billion- more than doubled
Education-Went from $56 billion to $79.1 billion-29% increase
Within those departments, some programs got bigger increases than the average, some smaller.
One thing I’ve never heard addressed from the crowd that sees perpetuate deficits as not a problem: What about interest payments? Shouldn’t we balance the budget AND pay down debt so that we are just wasting that money year after year?
Remember that we’re talking about “the new baselines for agencies” by comparing 2008 to 2012. Load this pdf, scroll down to page 123-124, where the discretionary budget authority is stated for each agency. This is the baseline operating budget for each agency.
Nope. State Department went from $22.1 billion to $29.1 billion.
Nope. Energy went from $24.1 billion to $26.4 billion.
Nope. USDA went from $26.1 billion to $24.1 billion. It got smaller, ya dig?
Nope. DOT went from $16.7 billion to $19.5 billion.
Nope. Ed went from $57.2 billion to $67.4 billion.
Overall, discretionary spending went from $1.179 trillion in 2008 to $1.197 trillion in 2012. Wow. Those new agency baselines are exploding. $10 billion of discretionary growth in four years. That’s about 1% growth.
The horror. Oh, the horror.
Are these figures adjusted for inflation? The inflation from 2008 to 2012 was 6.6%.
$1.179 in 2008 was $1.257 in 2012. 1.257 to 1.197 is a 5% decrease.
This is why budget math is so annoying. Different terms produce completely different results. “Discretionary baseline authority” is not the same as outlays, and as another poster pointed out, mandatory spending is actually controlled by Congress, just in a different way. Discretionary spending according to budget outlays went from $1.114 trillion in 2008:
to $1.338 trillion in 2012:
Which is a 20% overall increase. But that doesn’t mean the mandatory spending increases don’t count. THe mandatory increases that come from the recession and population aging doesn’t, because that would have been spent anyway, but that created by changing eligibility or starting new programs is.
Exactly. As a true fiscal conservative, I honestly don’t give a rat’s ass about who did what in the past. It is done. Deficit spending is bad except in exceptional emergencies and even then, the budget during normal times should include savings for such emergencies so that it isn’t an issue. People will tell you over and over that running a country isn’t like running your personal finances. That is lie through intentional confusion.The details are different and you have some more tools at your disposal when you are running a country but, when you really break it down, it is the same thing and everything else is just excuses.
You’re the one that said that agencies’ baselines have changed. Outlays do not measure agency “baselines,” BA does. Congress does not approve outlays, Congress approves BA. Outlays are subject to quirks like the speed of liquidating obligations: for example, if we buy an expensive submarine or something, the BA appears all in one year, but the outlays will stretch for 5 years or more. The measure of new spending is, was and always must be BA, and you’re just simply wrong.
Again, you said agency baselines changed by as much as 50%. Now you’re trying to shift the topic to entitlements. This happens every single time I call you out on anything relating to the budget: you throw out factual errors and then dissemble on what it was you were actually claiming.
So why the higher baseline compared to outlays in 2008, yet much lower baseline to outlays in 2012? Your numbers make it look like discretionary spending didn’t increase much at all, yet it did go up: by 20%. And mandatory by even more due to policy changes by the Democrats.
You can’t compare BA in one year to outlays in another and gain some meaningful insight into the nature of the budget. They are two different measures: one is of new spending (BA), one is of old spending (outlays). Whatever has happened in 2012 to cause an increase in outlays would have been preceded by lower outlays in prior years, because over time, BA and outlays are going to be extremely close (BA will always be greater, however, because small amounts of appropriations expire before they can be spent). Changes in outlay rates track changes in BA and will differ depending what the money is being spent on.
Anyway, if you look at table 8.7 on pages 176-177, outlays are listed for discretionary programs. Outlays in 2008 were $1.134 trillion. Outlays for 2012 were $1.286 trillion. That’s not as big an increase as you say.
Once again, you said agency baselines went up and never came down. I have walked you through why that is wrong. New discretionary spending, which is measured by BA, is pretty much at the level it was in 2008.
Will you acknowledge your error?
Your $1.114 trillion in 2008 Is false for your comparison.
What kind of true fiscal conservative does not give a rat’s ass about bad fiscal behavior of the past and then goes on to say that the corrective action for the Federal Government is the same as that for a family’s household budget that has gone awry?
What kind of reasoning is this? There are two basic ways for a family budget to go broke. One is total non-fiscally conservative behavior by one or both of the adults in the marriage or family arrangement. Perhaps the dependents can run a family budget amok but whatever the case how does Shagnasty claim to be a fiscal conservative and then not give a rats ass about behavior that is opposite what a fiscal conservative supposedly believes in.
The second way a family is forced to spend way beyond its means and lose control of its budget is some type of catastrophe such as sudden job loss or health issues not covered by insurance. For Shagnasty to not give a rats ass about families suffering a catastrophe demonstrates a lack of compassion for his fellow man.
That is bad enough, but then Shagnasty attempts to compare the financially troubled household model to the Federal Government whereas Shagnasty also claims no concern about the behavior of the past president and Congress that led the Federal Government to its current high deficit condition.
How does Shagnasty compare a family to the Federal Government when we all know that a family’s budget is run by the couple who many times are joined in holy matrimony for life. Kids don’t vote every four years for whom they want their mommy and daddy to be.
Likewise the governed of the country as a whole do not put trust in one person for life and expect them to manage money quite ‘fiscally conservative’ in the exact appropriate manner that they have decided is best for them.
There are many competing interests in the Federal Budget that all have a say.
It is silly to think that a president of the USA can run a country and manage a budget just like a typical family household.
A president can manage a budget as best he can with what he inherits coming into office. Or he can blow it.
But it sure matters what the president before him and the Congress before him did and the make-up of the Congress that the electorate has forced him/her to work with.
And it matters if he starts his term in the midst of a huge recession.
How many more times will we have to see this quaint little fairy tale posted?
If the deficit is shrinking then where did thiscome from?
You posted a lot of charts, so I could not tell if a single one of them dealt with the Original Question (see first quote above) at the start of this thread. And yes the deficit is ‘shrinking’ in the terms and context from which the question is asked.
Why are Obama and Democrats solely responsible for the deficit woes that started with the crash of the economy at the end of Bush’s eight years at the helm.
Borrowing money should be just fine if the cost of borrowing is low. Emergencies by their nature are unpredictable. Sometimes you spend a bundle because you can save a bundle, even if the return is long term, longer than you could “save up” for reasonably in a democracy.
The finances of the country should not be compared to personal finances. It’s not the same. But then that’s the trick isn’t it? “I get to define the terms and scope of the argument and anyone that disagrees is just BSing you.”
I meant “budget neutral” or better than that the ACA beats "budget neutral’ it increases revenues and cuts costs over ten years.
This was the first score, and I know the ACA has been scored by CBO since, but the ACA remains to be better than “Budget Neutral”.
This is why Sean Hannity is a liar when he declares the ACA is going to cost trillions of dollars.
IT does not ‘cost’ anything over the long run if the ‘savings’ and ‘revenues’ exceed the up front costs and overall costs.
And the ACA does reduce the deficit in ten years while delivering a better system for health care providing than doing nothing would.
IF health care insurance were as understandable as building a bridge across a river to a major populated area where the nearst river crossing is twenty miles away perhaps you could see why Sean Hannity is misleading his audience.
The Government spends $50 million of tax revenue to build a bridge that will save local residents $100 million in fuel and maintence costs over ten years by getting across the bridge at an optimum location. But when put in operation the bridge will collect tolls to pay for it for ten years and then the tolls go away. The tolls are projected to remimburse the cost of building the bridge in full.
That is ‘budget neutral’.
Then benefits go on for decades afteword.
That is the ACA in simple terms.
Since we are discussing the ACA, there is a flaw in your reply that must be pointed out. The ACA does not ‘cost taxpayers’ as a whole for the cost of the ACA.
Just certain taxpayers will offset some the the cost of the ACA. Some the cost is being offset by cost reduction measures. The balance will be offset by very few specific taxpayers. Ninety Eight percent of current taxpayers with employer provided health care insurance will not see an increase in taxes as a result of the passage of the ACA. That is significant to keep in mind, and it is dishonest not to mention that fact.
The top 2% are being asked to defray some of the costs of the ACA in order to bring more people into the system and reduce costs and save lives by given better access to more people than currently being served.
A few companies will pay a higher tax or penalty.
When anyone claims that the ACA will cost the ‘taxpayers’ to pay for Obama Care it is disingenuous to leave the impression that ‘all’ taxpayers will be hit.
Not at all. All taxpayers will be hit, because there are numerous little taxes(such as on tanning beds) that will affect everyone at some point. And taxes aren’t the only cost of the ACA. If you’re young and healthy, you’re paying bigtime to subsidize the older and sicker. Then there’s the extra mandates, those all raise the price of insurance.
As for Sean Hannity, the CBO is not God. They estimate costs in a fair way, but that does not mean they are always right. In fact, they are always wrong. that’s the nature of estimates, they are always off, sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot. What was Medicare supposed to cost again? Oh yeah, $9 billion by 1990. That wasn’t the CBO, but supporters of Medicare liked to cite that as a “fact” back then too. time to learn some humility when it comes to estimates rather than tarring those who think those estimates wrong as liars.
Speaking of humility, I asked you whether you acknowledged that you were wrong about the “the stimulus established new agency baselines that are as much at 50% higher than 2008” error.
We still haven’t established that you identified the baselines correctly. From what I understand, what was appropriated in year 1 is the baseline for year 2.
Actual spending did go up by 20-30% in many departments, and pulling out one particular accounting definition of the spending doesn’t change that.
Baseline budgeting uses current spending levels as the “baseline” for establishing future funding requirements and assumes future budgets will equal the current budget times the inflation rate times the population growth rate
My earlier cites were what was actually appropriated. Those are the actual baselines.