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Townhall...
Budget
Fiction and Failings
by Bob
Beauprez
February 15, 2012
Barack
Obama delivered his new budget proposal to Congress this morning. The
document
increases yet again the estimate for deficit spending for the current
FY 2012
year - $1.33 trillion. If
even close to
accurate, when this fiscal year ends, Obama will
have presided over four consecutive annual
deficits in excess of $1 trillion – each one nearly three times larger
than any
previous annual deficit in U.S. history – and a total of additional
debt for
the nation of $5.334 trillion during his first term.
By election
time this fall, Obama will have nearly completed his first term. The annual deficits on his
watch will be as
follows:
FY 2009 -
$1.412 trillion
FY 2010 -
$1.293 trillion
FY 2011 -
$1.299 trillion
FY 2012 -
$1.33 trillion
(OMB estimate)
It seems
meaningless to mention that he promised a much different scenario.
It took the
first 42 Presidents 212 years for America to amass as much total debt
as Obama
will pile on future generations in just four years.
According to the White House’s Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) the total debt held by the public will more
than
double during Obama’s four years in office – exploding from $5.8
trillion at
the end of FY 2008 to nearly $12 trillion by the end of FY 2012 on
September 30
of this year.
Yes, Obama
inherited an economy in free fall, and he does not deserve blame for
all of the
deficit spending already in motion when he was sworn into office,
although it
is only fair to mention that Democrats were in control of both the
House and
Senate in 2007 and 2008. Other
President’s came to office amid great challenges, too, and Obama was
the one
who promised he knew how to turn things around.
He’s the one who said he’d cut in half the
deficit he inherited by the
end of his first term.
For the
candidate who promised hope-and-change it seems fair to ask, “What have
you
changed in your first four years, Mr. Obama?”
Not much that is good, and certainly not what
you promised.
The law
requires the President to submit annual budgets to Congress including
ten year
projections. Simply comparing his own previous budget projections for
FY 2012
to this newest version of White House fiction exposes what is either
gross
fiscal incompetence or a strong propensity to be less than honest. Following
are the deficit projections for
FY 2012 from Obama’s first four budgets:
FY 2010
Budget
Estimated FY
2012 deficit:
$.557 trillion
FY 2011
Budget
Estimated FY
2012 deficit:
$.828 trillion
FY 2012
Budget
Estimated
FY 2012 deficit:
$1.101 trillion
FY 2013
Budget
Estimated FY
2013 deficit:
$1.33
trillion
In the real
world outside Washington’s beltway, any CEO of a major company that
missed the
mark so badly and always to the financial detriment of the organization
would
be sent packing. In
fact, Obama fired
the CEO at General Motors for that very reason. The
same standard needs to apply to this
President, and November can’t come soon enough to do just that.
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