Obama's Budget: More Phantoms than a Lon Chaney Flick
The AP does a fact check on Obama's budget and concludes that like all such documents, this one is full of "phantoms."
When a president introduces a budget, there are always phantoms flitting around the room. President Barack Obama's spending plan sets loose a number of them.
It counts on phantom savings from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's underpinned by tax increases Republicans won't let happen and program cuts fellow Democrats in Congress are all but certain to block.
Specifically, Obama counts $850 billion in war savings and pushes a chunk of that "savings" toward road construction. The problem is that since the wars are being paid for by borrowing, there's no peace dividend this time around. And that's assuming defense spending goes down as planned.
Then there's this. The budget
Forecasts healthy growth in years ahead, with GDP growth predicted to reach a robust 4 percent in 2014 and 4.2 percent in 2015….
Last year, the administration built its proposed budget on a projection of 2.7 percent growth in 2011; it turned out to be 1.7. The forecast for 2012 was 3.6 percent, which the White House lowered in the new budget to 3 percent. IHS Global Insight, a leading forecaster in Lexington, Mass., projects 2.1 percent.
Rosy scenarios of economic growth are pervasive in government planning. They rarely come to pass.
The AP story also notes that the budget assumes that taxes will go up on the wealthy ("a non-starter before the election") and also that programs favored by influential congressfolks will be cut or zeroed out (no chance).
More on the budget from Reason here. The short version: flat spending for next year, but higher taxes on the rich. And lots more deficits and debt over the next decade.
