Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Beware Politicians Bearing Spending Cut Promises!

By John Sykes

imageWhen a politician starts promising future spending cuts for present tax increases, head for the polls and get rid of that politician and any other politician that believed him.

In very recent history, our politicians have lived this lie at least three times.

From Read My Lips’ Won’t Happen Again:

Back in 1982, President Reagan agreed to $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. Inflation projections make the analysis difficult, but it seems clear (and President Reagan believed) that almost none of the promised spending cuts materialized in real terms.

Then along came the Bush-Clinton debacle:

… the deal promised twice as much in spending cuts as it delivered in tax increases. Think again. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected before the deal that 1991–1995 spending would total $7.07 trillion. In fact, total spending for this period was $7.09 trillion. In other words, in return for agreeing to tax hikes, Republicans got $22 billion in extra spending rather than the promised $274 billion in cuts. This was despite the fact that there was another “spending cut” deal in 1993 — the Clinton tax-increase budget.

Finally, this year, rather than permanently extend the Bush tax-cuts but instead simply kick them down the road for a very little while, our Congressmen agreed to and actually got something like $38 billion in spending cuts. Those billions turned out to be millions.

And they and we were hornswoggled again!

Related cartoon:

image

No comments:

Post a Comment