The Cuts That Weren’t
The deficit commission proposed no real cuts. So why the wailing?
From the howls of outrage greeting the report of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, one would think that they had slashed government to the bone, throwing the elderly, poor, and sick into the street.
The commission “tells working Americans to drop dead,” said AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka. “Unconscionable,” says Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.), one of the commissioners who voted against the final report. “Unacceptable,” declared outgoing House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In reality, the commission report doesn’t go nearly far enough in reducing the size, cost, and intrusiveness of government. As a matter of fact, the commission doesn’t actually “cut” federal spending.
Under the commission’s proposal, government spending would rise from roughly $3.5 trillion today to more than $5 trillion by 2020. So, under the terrible “cuts” that the commission is recommending, federal spending would still increase faster than inflation. This is the old Washington game of calling a slower increase than previously projected a “cut.”
