STEPHEN MOORE BREAKS DOWN THE PRESIDENT’S SPENDING AND TAXING PLANS
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703584804576144371317677228.html
Obama’s ‘Keynesian Misadventure’ By STEPHEN MOORE
There’s a dispute simmering between the White House and House Republicans about how much the budget increased during President Obama’s first two years in office.
To settle that dispute, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin just updated the numbers on how much was appropriated and how big the spending increases were between 2008 and 2010. In Nancy Pelosi’s last two years as Speaker of the House, the non-Defense discretionary spending increased to $537 billion in 2010 from $434 billion in 2008, or 24%.
That’s a lot but not unprecedented, though the story doesn’t end there. You have to add in the stimulus program, which poured an additional $259 billion into these programs and resulted in a record 84% increase in the total domestic discretionary budget under the last Congress. Mr. Ryan describes this as a “massive spending spree that has plunged us deeper into debt.”
Senior Economics Writer Stephen Moore breaks down the President’s spending and taxing plans. Also, Anne Jolis, editorial writer for WSJ Europe, has the surprising data on extreme weather events.
What is even more interesting about the analysis is where all the money has gone. The Commerce Department, for example, has seen a 219% rise in its budget. The Environmental Protection Agency is up 130%. The Department of Education, which Democrats say should not absorb even a single dollar of cuts, has enjoyed a 181% spending bonus. The grand winner is the Transportation Department, whose budget has soared by 548%. So much for the “infrastructure crisis.”
The White House had predicted that the $814 billion stimulus would yield not just an unemployment rate of less than 8% but also a gross domestic product by the end of 2010 of $15,200 billion. Instead, as Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California points out, “the latest figures, released this month, fell short by some $400 billion.” Mr. Issa calls this Mr. Obama’s “Keynesian misadventure.”
Ironically, the White House is now warning that proposed GOP budget cuts could harm the economy by pulling back on the spending that never created the promised jobs expansion in the first place. “Assuming government can allocate resources and spur growth more effectively than market forces,” responds Mr. Issa, “is a mistake America must never allow to happen again.”
To read more stories like this one, please subscribe to Political Diary.
Comments are closed.
