Category Archives: Treasury
Budget Baseline Camp
Uncle Sam’s starting point for spending is a baseline of the previous year CBO projections for the coming year.
“The most absurd current example is Mr. Obama’s claim that his “$4 trillion” plan reduces the deficit by about $800 billion over 10 years by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But those “savings,” as he calls them, are measured against a White House budget office spending baseline that is fictional. Those wars are already being unwound and everyone knows the money will never be spent. But they are called “savings” to gull the public and make the deficit reduction add up to a large-sounding $4 trillion.”
Making a List
Mitt Romney dropped by the White House for lunch last week. Later the president hit the campaign trail to promote tax hikes on the rich. During a rally at the Rodon Group plant in Hatfield Pennsylvania, Obama announced he was keeping a list of naughty and nice congressmen. The Naughty or Nice List isn’t to be confused with the his Enemies List of Republican campaign donors, or his Kill List.
Fiscal Cliff Clown Car
As for the Fiscal Cliff, the President’s latest position is tax hikes now spending cuts later. Krauthammer thinks Lee got a better offer than that at Appomattox.
Romney’s 47 Percent
Romney says 47% of voters depend on government and should be written off to Obama.
In 2008 Obama said that blue collar voters “cling to their guns and religion”.
Slate’s William Saletan says it’s not the same because in the end “Obama tells his audience not to write off any group”.
Thomas B. Edsall of the NYT missed that memo when he wrote last November that the Obama campaign would abandon the white working class vote:
“For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.”
As for Romney, it’s true that almost half the population doesn’t pay federal income tax. But his 47% isn’t a permanent class of government serfs. It includes retired people and people just starting out, or starting over, who may hope one day to join the evil 1% who pay 38% of all federal income taxes.
Mitt should take Obama’s earlier advice.
