Media ridicules "pay-go" rhetoric

[DamnYankee]

News Reports Ridicule Obama Paygo Talk | Sweetness & Light

Washington, Jun 10 - The day after it promised to spend “stimulus” taxpayer dollars more quickly the White House made a big show of its promises on “fiscal discipline” – but news reports rightly noted that the Administration has shown a bigger commitment to massive spending and borrowing than fiscal austerity…

* Associated Press: “President Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed budget rules that would allow Congress to borrow tens of billions of dollars and put the nation deeper in debt to jump-start the administration’s emerging health care overhaul. The “pay-as-you-go” budget formula plan is significantly weaker than a proposal Obama issued with little fanfare last month. It would carve out about $2.5 trillion worth of exemptions for Obama’s priorities over the next decade. His health care reform plan also would get a green light to run big deficits in its early years. But over a decade, Congress would have to come up with money to cover those early year deficits.” – (“Obama: It’s OK to Borrow to Pay for Health Care,” June 9, 2009)

* Wall Street Journal: “President Barack Obama on Tuesday called for legally binding measures to enforce government spending restraint, but his congressional allies—and his own actions—threatened to undermine his message of fiscal discipline. Mr. Obama proposed to give "pay-as-you-go" budgeting rules the force of law, which would require Congress to offset entitlement-spending increases and tax cuts, either with spending cuts or tax increases. But critics say the proposed rules are riddled with loopholes and would have little impact. House appropriators on Tuesday unveiled spending numbers for the coming fiscal year that push up domestic outlays by 10.4%, after lawmakers used gimmicks to get around the pay-as-you-go rules Mr. Obama is embracing. ‘This is like quitting drinking, but making an exception for beer and hard liquor,’ said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan watchdog group.” – (“Democrats Mix Signals on Deficit,” June 10, 2009)

* Washington Post: President Obama called on Congress yesterday to enact pay-as-you-go budget rules to help tame a deficit forecast to top $1.8 trillion this year. But even as some Democrats applauded the plan, others complained that it would give a free pass to expensive policies that would sink the nation trillions of dollars deeper into the red over the next 10 years. … Coming one day after Obama vowed to shovel money from the economic stimulus package out the door even more quickly, yesterday’s call for fiscal rectitude also drew catcalls from Republicans. ‘The president continues to display a frightening ability to say one thing, yet do the exact opposite,” said Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.). ‘It’s frankly insulting that a president who is on a path to bankrupting our government would try to play the role of fiscal hawk.’” – (“Some Democrats Warn of Loophole in Obama’s Pay-As-You-Go Rules,” June 10, 2009)

* New York Times: “During the first four months of his administration, President Obama has committed roughly $1 trillion in federal spending – a $787 billion economic recovery package, and $350 billion in money to bail out the nation’s banks. But on Tuesday, Mr. Obama was talking about saving money, not spending it. … But critics of Paygo say it is not simple at all. Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation, said the Paygo law required Congress to make across-the-board cuts in entitlement spending at the end of any year in which the Congressional Budget Office found that Paygo requirements had not been met. He said lawmakers responded each time by passing another bill, waiving the Paygo requirements. ‘Paygo is a gimmick,’ Mr. Riedl said.” – (“One Day, Obama Pitches Stimulus Spending. The Next, He Urges Saving Money,” June 9, 2009)

* ABC News: “But on Capitol Hill, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Ken Conrad, D-ND, cautioned that he has “serious concerns” about aspects of the administration’s proposal, which he found wanting. PAYGO, he said, ‘can only do so much. It can prevent the passage of new legislation that would worsen the deficit, but it does not address the deficits and debt projected under existing policy. To truly solve our long-term budget crisis, I believe we need a special bipartisan process, where everything is on the table and where Congress is required to vote on a legislative solution.’ Conrad said that he’s concerned about the PAYGO exemptions, and highlighted that the administration’s PAYGO proposal differs from the House and Senate rules covering differing time periods and differ rules. Conrad said this would mean that Congressional committees would have to comply with two sets of estimates and procedures.” – (“President Obama, PAYGO, and the Deficit Hole,” June 9, 2009)

* CBS News: “But briefing reporters, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag conceded some of PAYGO’s limitations. It doesn’t cover discretionary spending. In addition, about 40 percent of the federal budget, programs for education, energy, the military, etc., would not be covered by PAYGO … As for existing deficits and the National Debt, which today stands at an all-time high of $11.39 trillion, PAYGO has no effect, other than to slow its growth by restraining some government spending.” – (“Would PAYGO Really Limit Spending [sic],” June 9, 2009)

 

[editec]

I have to agree here.

PayGO?

When we're deficit spending (presumably) to keep the economy from melting down?

That's absurd.

 

[DamnYankee]

I have to agree here.

PayGO?

When we're deficit spending (presumably) to keep the economy from melting down?

That's absurd.

Got the 'GO" part down.....

 

[STAND4LIBERTY]

"CBS News: “But briefing reporters, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag conceded some of PAYGO’s limitations. It doesn’t cover discretionary spending. In addition, about 40 percent of the federal budget, programs for education, energy, the military, etc., would not be covered by PAYGO … As for existing deficits and the National Debt, which today stands at an all-time high of $11.39 trillion, PAYGO has no effect, other than to slow its growth by restraining some government spending.” – (“Would PAYGO Really Limit Spending [sic],” June 9, 2009)"

Is it just me or do rational people, wanting to balance their budgets, either reduce spending or increase revenues or a combination of both? I guess this fiasco offers further evidence that Washington is full of irrational people, since apparently our politicians think they can reduce the deficit by the sheer power of their bullshit.

 

[dilloduck]

"CBS News: “But briefing reporters, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag conceded some of PAYGO’s limitations. It doesn’t cover discretionary spending. In addition, about 40 percent of the federal budget, programs for education, energy, the military, etc., would not be covered by PAYGO … As for existing deficits and the National Debt, which today stands at an all-time high of $11.39 trillion, PAYGO has no effect, other than to slow its growth by restraining some government spending.” – (“Would PAYGO Really Limit Spending [sic],” June 9, 2009)"

Is it just me or do rational people, wanting to balance their budgets, either reduce spending or increase revenues or a combination of both? I guess this fiasco offers further evidence that Washington is full of irrational people, since apparently our politicians think they can reduce the deficit by the sheer power of their bullshit.

When we are powerless to stop them they can come up with the flimsiest rationales for doing anything. I'd say it was a bit insulting but apparently it works so why should they care?

 

[STAND4LIBERTY]

When we are powerless to stop them they can come up with the flimsiest rationales for doing anything. I'd say it was a bit insulting but apparently it works so why should they care?

I think you hit the nail on the head there , it's akin to thieves breaking into your house, stealing everything you own and leaving an apology note behind.

 

[Skull Pilot]

The 'Paygo' Coverup - WSJ.com

Some things in politics you can't make up, such as President Obama's re-re-endorsement Tuesday of "pay-as-you-go" budgeting. Coming after $787 billion in nonstimulating stimulus, a $410 billion omnibus to wrap up fiscal 2009, a $3.5 trillion 2010 budget proposal, sundry bailouts and a 13-figure health-care spending expansion still to come, this latest vow of fiscal chastity is like Donald Trump denouncing self-promotion.

Check that. Even The Donald would find this one too much to sell.

But Mr. Obama must think the press and public are dumb enough to buy it, because there he was Tuesday re-selling the same "paygo" promises that Democrats roll out every election. Paygo is "very simple," the President claimed. "Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere."

That's what Democrats also promised in 2006, with Nancy Pelosi vowing that "the first thing" House Democrats would do if they took Congress was reimpose paygo rules that "Republicans had let lapse." By 2008, Speaker Pelosi had let those rules lapse no fewer than 12 times, to make way for $400 billion in deficit spending. Mr. Obama repeated the paygo pledge during his 2008 campaign, and instead we have witnessed the greatest peacetime spending binge in U.S. history. As a share of GDP, spending will hit an astonishing 28.5% in fiscal 2009, with the deficit hitting 13% and projected to stay at 4% to 5% for years to come.

The truth is that paygo is the kind of budget gimmick that gives gimmickry a bad name. As Mr. Obama knows but won't tell voters, paygo only applies to new or expanded entitlement programs, not to existing programs such as Medicare, this year growing at a 9.2% annual rate. Nor does paygo apply to discretionary spending, set to hit $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2010, or 40% of the budget.

This loophole matters, because on the very day Mr. Obama was hailing paygo the House Appropriations Committee was gleefully approving a 12% increase in 2010 nondefense discretionary spending, the third year running that Democrats have proposed double-digit increases. Or consider that the 2010 budget resolution included a $2 billion increase for low-income heating assistance as an entitlement change that should be subject to paygo. But Congressional Democrats simply classified it as discretionary spending, thereby avoiding the need for $2 billion in cuts elsewhere. C'est-la-paygo.

Mr. Obama's new proposal includes even more loopholes. There's an exception for Congress's annual alternative-minimum tax "patch," which is worth at least $576 billion over 10 years; for any of the Bush tax cuts that Mr. Obama decides he wants to extend past 2010; and to protect against planned cuts in Medicare doctor payments. These carve-outs alone spare Democrats from having to come up with some $2.5 trillion in spending cuts or new taxes. To add insult to profligacy, the rules also allow the Administration to run huge early deficits for its looming health-care bonanza, and only pay for it later -- say, after 2012.

The President also revived the myth that paygo was somehow responsible for eliminating budget deficits during the Clinton years. In fact, that brief era of balanced budgets was due to: mid-decade spending reductions by a GOP Congress elected on a balanced-budget pledge; an excessive cut in defense spending to 3% from 5% of GOP across the decade; and an unsustainable revenue boom due to the dot-com bubble. But harking back to the 1990s lets Mr. Obama avoid having to defend his own spending record.

The real game here is that the President is trying to give Democrats in Congress political cover for the health-care blowout and tax-increase votes that he knows are coming. The polls are showing that Mr. Obama's spending plans are far less popular than the President himself, and Democrats in swing districts are getting nervous. The paygo ruse gives Blue Dog Democrats cover to say they voted for "fiscal discipline," even as they vote to pass the greatest entitlement expansion in modern history. The Blue Dogs always play this double game.

The other goal of this new paygo campaign is to make it easier to raise taxes in 2011, and impossible to cut taxes for years after that. In the near term, paygo gives Mr. Obama another excuse to let the Bush tax cuts he dislikes expire after 2010, while exempting those (for lower-income voters) that he likes. In the longer term, if a GOP Congress or President ever want to cut taxes, paygo applies a straitjacket that pits those tax cuts against, say, spending cuts in Medicare. The Reagan tax reductions would never have happened under paygo.

The main political question now is when Americans will start to figure out Mr. Obama's pattern of spend, repent and repeat. The President is still sailing along on his charm and the fact that Americans are cheering for an economic recovery. But eventually they'll see that he isn't telling them the truth, and when they do, the very Blue Dogs he's trying to protect will pay the price. And they'll deserve what they get.

 

[KMAN]

"CBS News: “But briefing reporters, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag conceded some of PAYGO’s limitations. It doesn’t cover discretionary spending. In addition, about 40 percent of the federal budget, programs for education, energy, the military, etc., would not be covered by PAYGO … As for existing deficits and the National Debt, which today stands at an all-time high of $11.39 trillion, PAYGO has no effect, other than to slow its growth by restraining some government spending.” – (“Would PAYGO Really Limit Spending [sic],” June 9, 2009)"

Is it just me or do rational people, wanting to balance their budgets, either reduce spending or increase revenues or a combination of both? I guess this fiasco offers further evidence that Washington is full of irrational people, since apparently our politicians think they can reduce the deficit by the sheer power of their bullshit.

This is what happens when a bunch of lawyers run the Government...

 

[Xenophon]

BO already blew a trillion and wants to spend 2 trillion more, and he claims he wants to be fiscally responsible?

You would have to be an imbecile to believe him.

 

[STAND4LIBERTY]

BO already blew a trillion and wants to spend 2 trillion more, and he claims he wants to be fiscally responsible?

Yeah he claims he cares about the American People too, not to mention pulls it off with a straight face, which just indicates he's got a heck of career as a poker player ahead of him once his days as a professional liar are over.

 

[Nik]

"CBS News: “But briefing reporters, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag conceded some of PAYGO’s limitations. It doesn’t cover discretionary spending. In addition, about 40 percent of the federal budget, programs for education, energy, the military, etc., would not be covered by PAYGO … As for existing deficits and the National Debt, which today stands at an all-time high of $11.39 trillion, PAYGO has no effect, other than to slow its growth by restraining some government spending.” – (“Would PAYGO Really Limit Spending [sic],” June 9, 2009)"

Is it just me or do rational people, wanting to balance their budgets, either reduce spending or increase revenues or a combination of both? I guess this fiasco offers further evidence that Washington is full of irrational people, since apparently our politicians think they can reduce the deficit by the sheer power of their bullshit.

Many rational people borrow, actually. Which is why so many businesses and individuals were hit so hard when credit dried up.

 

[Navy1960]

The framework of Clinton's plan follows the GOP's lead: He would trim growth in Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare spending and make deep cuts in most other programs. And he would cut taxes. The only major difference: The President insists on more money for education. Although specifics differ from the House and Senate blueprints, the outlines of a megadeal are falling into place. Says Senator Joseph T. Lieberman (D-Conn.): "It is now inevitable that we will have a balanced budget by a [specific] date." Adds Frank Shafroth, chief lobbyist for the National League of Cities: "The shape of the debate is fundamentally changed."
BW Online | June 26, 1995 | BILL CLINTON, DEFICIT HAWK

I just thought I would throw this out there for debate, given this Pay-Go nonsense, and it's utter nonsense to spend and spend and spend with a massive deficit and a slow economy, then turn around and tell other parts of Govt. they have to tighten up while you keep spending on your agenda as if that will have no effect on anything. When you reduce the deficit and cut taxes and promote and atmosphere of competetion the economy thrives even Bill Clinton understood this.

 

[rayboyusmc]

You would have to be an imbecile to believe him.

And how is this different from those who believed the Bush Cheney fiasco?

 

[sealybobo]

BO already blew a trillion and wants to spend 2 trillion more, and he claims he wants to be fiscally responsible?

You would have to be an imbecile to believe him.

So you believe him?

If Bush neglected America for 8 years because he wanted to spend all our money on the rich, and American infrastructure suffered, and none of Bush's spending went towards America, how do you not understand that BO is now spending on shit that should have been done before he even got into office?

And BO is cutting spending on things we told you the last 8 years were wastful. Instead of agreeing that stuff was wasteful, you defended all Bush's spending and watched him double the debt. And we got nothing to show for it.

 

[Meister]

Will the term "Federal Sales Tax" come into play with this "PayGo"?
I bet it does......

 

[Oddball]

If Bush neglected America for 8 years because he wanted to spend all our money on the rich, and American infrastructure suffered, and none of Bush's spending went towards America, how do you not understand that BO is now spending on shit that should have been done before he even got into office?

And BO is cutting spending on things we told you the last 8 years were wastful. Instead of agreeing that stuff was wasteful, you defended all Bush's spending and watched him double the debt. And we got nothing to show for it.

Yeah!!...Yeah!!...Yeah!!

GEORGE BOOOOOOOSH!!!!....and...and...and....THE CORPORATIONS!!!...and...and...and...HALLIBURTION!!!!...and...and..and...CHENEY RUNNING THE SHADOW GIMBINT IN THE BASEMENT OF WAL-MART!!!!

 

[STAND4LIBERTY]

Will the term "Federal Sales Tax" come into play with this "PayGo"?
I bet it does......

I think the odds are the it won't instead it will be "Federal Value Added Tax", since a sales tax isn't hidden from the consumer a VAT is....

 

[MaggieMae]

I have to agree here.

PayGO?

When we're deficit spending (presumably) to keep the economy from melting down?

That's absurd.

I agree it was silly. There's no way in hell Congress can pare down anything already existing that will amount to the proposed outlay, and therefore they're not going to re-institute PAYGO. Maybe another year, but surely not this one.

Finally, the conservatives have a legitimate beef. And Obama needs a vacation away from his own talking heads and czars.

 

[DamnYankee]

The 'Paygo' Coverup - WSJ.com

Some things in politics you can't make up, such as President Obama's re-re-endorsement Tuesday of "pay-as-you-go" budgeting. Coming after $787 billion in nonstimulating stimulus, a $410 billion omnibus to wrap up fiscal 2009, a $3.5 trillion 2010 budget proposal, sundry bailouts and a 13-figure health-care spending expansion still to come, this latest vow of fiscal chastity is like Donald Trump denouncing self-promotion.

Check that. Even The Donald would find this one too much to sell.

But Mr. Obama must think the press and public are dumb enough to buy it, because there he was Tuesday re-selling the same "paygo" promises that Democrats roll out every election. Paygo is "very simple," the President claimed. "Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere."

That's what Democrats also promised in 2006, with Nancy Pelosi vowing that "the first thing" House Democrats would do if they took Congress was reimpose paygo rules that "Republicans had let lapse." By 2008, Speaker Pelosi had let those rules lapse no fewer than 12 times, to make way for $400 billion in deficit spending. Mr. Obama repeated the paygo pledge during his 2008 campaign, and instead we have witnessed the greatest peacetime spending binge in U.S. history. As a share of GDP, spending will hit an astonishing 28.5% in fiscal 2009, with the deficit hitting 13% and projected to stay at 4% to 5% for years to come.

The truth is that paygo is the kind of budget gimmick that gives gimmickry a bad name. As Mr. Obama knows but won't tell voters, paygo only applies to new or expanded entitlement programs, not to existing programs such as Medicare, this year growing at a 9.2% annual rate. Nor does paygo apply to discretionary spending, set to hit $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2010, or 40% of the budget.

This loophole matters, because on the very day Mr. Obama was hailing paygo the House Appropriations Committee was gleefully approving a 12% increase in 2010 nondefense discretionary spending, the third year running that Democrats have proposed double-digit increases. Or consider that the 2010 budget resolution included a $2 billion increase for low-income heating assistance as an entitlement change that should be subject to paygo. But Congressional Democrats simply classified it as discretionary spending, thereby avoiding the need for $2 billion in cuts elsewhere. C'est-la-paygo.

Mr. Obama's new proposal includes even more loopholes. There's an exception for Congress's annual alternative-minimum tax "patch," which is worth at least $576 billion over 10 years; for any of the Bush tax cuts that Mr. Obama decides he wants to extend past 2010; and to protect against planned cuts in Medicare doctor payments. These carve-outs alone spare Democrats from having to come up with some $2.5 trillion in spending cuts or new taxes. To add insult to profligacy, the rules also allow the Administration to run huge early deficits for its looming health-care bonanza, and only pay for it later -- say, after 2012.

The President also revived the myth that paygo was somehow responsible for eliminating budget deficits during the Clinton years. In fact, that brief era of balanced budgets was due to: mid-decade spending reductions by a GOP Congress elected on a balanced-budget pledge; an excessive cut in defense spending to 3% from 5% of GOP across the decade; and an unsustainable revenue boom due to the dot-com bubble. But harking back to the 1990s lets Mr. Obama avoid having to defend his own spending record.

The real game here is that the President is trying to give Democrats in Congress political cover for the health-care blowout and tax-increase votes that he knows are coming. The polls are showing that Mr. Obama's spending plans are far less popular than the President himself, and Democrats in swing districts are getting nervous. The paygo ruse gives Blue Dog Democrats cover to say they voted for "fiscal discipline," even as they vote to pass the greatest entitlement expansion in modern history. The Blue Dogs always play this double game.

The other goal of this new paygo campaign is to make it easier to raise taxes in 2011, and impossible to cut taxes for years after that. In the near term, paygo gives Mr. Obama another excuse to let the Bush tax cuts he dislikes expire after 2010, while exempting those (for lower-income voters) that he likes. In the longer term, if a GOP Congress or President ever want to cut taxes, paygo applies a straitjacket that pits those tax cuts against, say, spending cuts in Medicare. The Reagan tax reductions would never have happened under paygo.

The main political question now is when Americans will start to figure out Mr. Obama's pattern of spend, repent and repeat. The President is still sailing along on his charm and the fact that Americans are cheering for an economic recovery. But eventually they'll see that he isn't telling them the truth, and when they do, the very Blue Dogs he's trying to protect will pay the price. And they'll deserve what they get.

Obama decided that he was going to push health care through, no matter what -- despite the fact that it was one of his re-ordered priorities when he was interviewed on CNN by Blitzer. He had no intention of putting it on the back burner then, and is prepared by coerce, threaten and/or probably blackmail Congress to pass his version of "reform" -- which has no elements of reform at all.

 

[MaggieMae]

The framework of Clinton's plan follows the GOP's lead: He would trim growth in Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare spending and make deep cuts in most other programs. And he would cut taxes. The only major difference: The President insists on more money for education. Although specifics differ from the House and Senate blueprints, the outlines of a megadeal are falling into place. Says Senator Joseph T. Lieberman (D-Conn.): "It is now inevitable that we will have a balanced budget by a [specific] date." Adds Frank Shafroth, chief lobbyist for the National League of Cities: "The shape of the debate is fundamentally changed."
BW Online | June 26, 1995 | BILL CLINTON, DEFICIT HAWK

I just thought I would throw this out there for debate, given this Pay-Go nonsense, and it's utter nonsense to spend and spend and spend with a massive deficit and a slow economy, then turn around and tell other parts of Govt. they have to tighten up while you keep spending on your agenda as if that will have no effect on anything. When you reduce the deficit and cut taxes and promote and atmosphere of competetion the economy thrives even Bill Clinton understood this.

There is undoubtedly enough fraud and waste going on in every agency, sub-agency, and every tiny office in every corner of all the bloated government buildings to balance the budget and bring deficit spending down to a reasonable sum. But who is willing to take on the enormous task of cleaning house? Certainly no elected officials, and "committees" just mean more bureaucracy added to the pile! David Walker, the former comptroller general (a 15-year assigned position), left early and actually needed to take a sabbatical he became so frustrated with the amount of government waste.

Someone in another thread mentioned the Reichtag fire? Hmmm, that would have been one way to start from scratch--just burn all the government facilities in Washington. But now we have the Internet, so that option is out. Shit.