Today President Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform will convene for the first time at the White House. Tasked with making recommendations to Congress that would put the budget in primary balance by 2015 and "meaningfully improve" our nation's long-term fiscal outlook, the commission meets a little over a month after Congress approved a new $2.5 trillion health care entitlement that the Obama administration now confirms will increase our nation's total health care spending.
This is a now familiar pattern for the White House: first enact record breaking levels of deficit spending, then turn right around and promise austerity sometime in the future. This February, after signing the largest single-year increase in domestic federal spending since World War II, President Obama held a “fiscal responsibility” summit designed to “send a signal that we are serious” about putting the nation on sounder financial footing. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank quipped at the time: “Holding a ‘fiscal responsibility summit’ at the White House in the middle of a government spending spree is a bit like having an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at a frat house on homecoming weekend.”
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Unfortunately, the Heritage Foundation has gone from being a respected conservative think tank to a right wing hack blog on the internet. The piece you posted is a prime example.
I saw (generally conservative) Greg Valliere speak this morning and he told the rather conservative group that he often hears "Why can't we just cut spending?" and he responds "It won't be enough. If you completely eliminate discretionary spending, you still have a deficit." Fortunately, more and more conservatives are getting a clue and acknowledging it out loud.
I asked him if the lame duck session and the Debt Commission would produce significant deficit reduction in December and he said that he doubted it. Interest rates remain very low and their simply isn't the urgency. "A lot of economists and intellectuals embrace the VAT, but they don't have to run for reelection." Finally, "We will begin to really solve the problem when it is a crisis and not until then."
Have a good weekend :(
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