Obama Can't Balance Budget With Social Spending Cuts

WASHINGTON -- Any effort to balance the budget by cutting non-defense discretionary spending -- largely social programs targeted to benefit working- and middle-class Americans, as President Barack Obama is proposing for fiscal 2012 -- is destined to fail. That's not the subjective judgment of liberal backers of government spending, it's just simple math.

The entire non-defense discretionary budget for 2010 was $491 billion. That rises to $496 billion for 2011 before falling to $462 billion in 2012.

Compare that figure to the deficit: $1.6 trillion in 2011 and $1.1 trillion in 2012. At no time over the next decade, according to the budget forecast, will the deficit fall below $770 billion, meaning that cutting every penny in social spending would still leave the government in the hole.

The entire federal budget, including entitlements and war spending, is $3.7 trillion, meaning that the social spending Obama is targeting amounts to 12 percent of the overall budget. Willie Sutton famously said he robbed banks -- not poor people -- because that's where the money is.

Getting serious about closing the deficit would mean investing in growth, which boosts revenues but costs money in the short term, and raising taxes on the wealthy. The tax-cut deal Obama struck with the GOP cost $858 billion over just two years -- roughly equal to all of the nondefense discretionary spending over that period.

While targeting social spending may not make an appreciable dent in the deficit, it can do real damage to the social safety net over time. Under Obama's plan, the relative size of non-defense discretionary spending would plummet by one-quarter in the next decade. Such spending equals 9 percent of the total budget by 2021, according to the president's projections.

Yet such massive reductions don't come close to satisfying deficit hawks. Erskine Bowles, the Democratic co-chair of Obama's deficit commission, said he thinks the proposed cuts are "nowhere near where they will have to go to resolve our fiscal nightmare."

Comments

[Sidney Vaught]

09:13 AM on 02/16/2011

I have a suggestion that will save this nation billions and billions of dollars...END THE DAMN WAR IN AFGHANISTAN!!!

According to the book "Obama's Wars", Obama wanted to end the war in Afghanistan by July 2011. Here we are about five months away from July 2011 and it seems we're nowhere near ending the war. Instead Obama is going to make the middle class and the poor make all the sacrifices in his budget cuts while the government is still spending billions in an unwinnable war.

[fourtruth]

12:19 PM on 02/15/2011

HA! All you naysayers - all you Muckrakers.

Just heard Obama -

Home heating program - Obama doubled that when he took office because home oil costs were so high, oil costs are now down - so adjusting accordingly - not eliminating (the other supposed weatherization cuts - just not so).

Pell - same thing - he had raised Pell to assist the unemployed retrain during the recession - now we are no longer losing jobs every month month, so Pell is being cut - but only summer school and a couple of others - not cutting back to Bush Pre-Obama - still more than Bush era..

I missed his SS part - will catch up to that later - but will ignor all the Progressive hysterics here at HP in the mean time.

HP is becoming about as dependable and irratioinal and hyped up as Fox - may as well be watching Beck, O'Reily et al!

Obama ROCKS!

[NL207]

01:44 PM on 02/15/2011

Obama rocks? Obama and the fools that follow him are spending the entire nation into bankruptcy. This will help no one outside the political class, rich, poor or otherwise.

[fourtruth]

02:55 PM on 02/15/2011

hoey

[Kojo Curtis]

09:17 AM on 02/15/2011

Question? What would happen if we cut our military budget by 2/3th??? What affect would it have on the budget?

[Wednesday Thompson]

09:07 AM on 02/15/2011

U.S. Uncut......Now on Facebook and Twitter. Working Class folks are not happy. And sick of footing the bill.
It's time for a little "austerity" for the Ruling Class.......

[Greg285]

08:19 AM on 02/15/2011

President Obama has sold his soul in order to get re-elected and that's sad. That's not the change that I voted for in 2008!!!

[liberallibrarian]

09:11 AM on 02/15/2011

No, he hasn't done it to get reelected. I believe he's done it because he is desperately trying to get Democrats and Republicans to work together and move past their petty differences in order to get things done. He's willing to hop back and forth over the political line. It's not his fault certain politicians we sent to Washington refuse to meet him halfway.

[NL207]

09:59 AM on 02/15/2011

And exactly what has Obama done to compromise with the Republicans? And don't cite the deferral of the Obama income tax increase for 2 years. That "compromise" was made with a heavily Democrat controlled House!

[booker52]

07:18 AM on 02/15/2011

They all need to grow a set and look at the real problems, not the low lying stuff thats easy to pick off and doesn't solve the problems. Two wars, out of control military spending, corporate welfare, try raising those taxes on the rich again. Cutting social programs aren't gonna fix the real problems.

[NL207]

07:48 AM on 02/15/2011

2012 FY Defense budget + war spending are proposed at $670.6B. The 2012 FY budget deficit is proposed at $1.65T.

The budget cannot be brought into any semblance of balance without cutting social programs simply because they are the lion's share of all spending.

[booker52]

07:55 AM on 02/15/2011

Do you know why SS is called an entitlement? Because we pay for them with deductions from our paychecks. As far as I am concerned the feds need to payback money they took out of the fund. SS is not in trouble as the right-wing would have us all believe.

[fourtruth]

12:41 PM on 02/15/2011

I and millions, forced early retirement - no jobs on horizon and no way to raise pensions or SS - just figured that I would have to live another 25 years (doublfull) before I begin to dip in over what is invested in my name. If my other 'private' retiremrent plan had not tanked in an Enron type deal and I had not had to spend my 401K on a pre-existing medical condition I could weather retirement at full retirement age without SS, - but it is doing what it is supposed to be doing - safety net. In addition my nest egg - to sell and downsize in retirement - my home - is 50% underwater - from what I paid 11 years ago - thanks to Bush and Banks and I can't afford the payments and getting the Making Homes Affordable program is turning into a joke - Obama could improve that for sure..

Cut high profit and unessary corporate subsidies and tax breaks - cut high earners tax deductions - cut military - reduce foreign aid some for a couple of years.

SS - make it needs based - have an income of $150,000 (or some agreed upon amount) from any sources and you don't get SS. And raise that SS limit - the bottom looks the same regardles of where you may have slid down from - believe me - I know - SS admin. says wealther participants tend to live longer and are the ones

[james rimes]

06:44 AM on 02/15/2011

It will be Hard to Balance anything with MERS... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by8pfn98pt0

[NL207]

06:39 AM on 02/15/2011

"Getting serious about closing the deficit would mean investing in growth"

Government doesn't 'invest' in anything. If you are honest about this claim, then you support cutting taxes on capital ... that means ending the progressive nature of the current income tax, cutting taxes on the 'rich'. Since you are a liberal, you support the progressive income tax and can't be taken seriously on this point.

[Captain Hindsight]

05:46 AM on 02/15/2011

Cut public services, cut pensions, support the rich with tax cuts and pay Wall Streets gambling debts.
Mark Mclees the firechief in syracuse NY said it all.

“The last time I checked there was no plaque with the names of bankers who died in the line of duty. There are no statues of Wall Street executives who laid down their lives for total strangers,”

[ladcrp]

04:50 AM on 02/15/2011

a.$$..hole­s

[ladcrp]

04:49 AM on 02/15/2011

phuqueing

[ladcrp]

04:48 AM on 02/15/2011

Face a Fact a.$$holes: (IKE mentioned it) Defense Department Cuts 50% in 5 years. We demand it. There is NO PHUQUEING Cold War. Start putting people first.

[NL207]

07:37 AM on 02/15/2011

Cut the entire defense budget. There will still be a $1T deficit. Your position is simply absurd.

[parlimentMike]

02:27 AM on 02/15/2011

"Balancing Act" is an apt headline. It's tough to get something skewed that far toward war and corporate interests from falling right over.

[thegirlnextdoor]

01:56 AM on 02/15/2011

Social Spending cuts are not about the budget but the perception that someone may be getting something for nothing. Social spending is tiny part of the budget. Cutting it is just a way to keep the poor in line.

[CB5]

10:46 AM on 02/15/2011

They are making social spending a big thing. I agree with you. So why aren't they looking somewhere else. Social spending is also giving the top 2% tax cuts and subsidizes for corporations who are making huge and absurd profits. 1/2 or more of our country's population is in deep trouble because of the wealthiest and corporations along with their power and ego trips they are on. So where are the checks and balances of social spending? Actually where have they systems of checks and balances, set up by our forefathers, gone in the day to day operations of our government today? and in previous terms of office.