Fiscal Insanity Continues II

Today the Washington Post carried the headline: "Obama readies broad plan to reduce deficit". Is there any believability in that headline?  I doubt it. Just more smoke and mirrors.  (Other fiscal insanity posts.)

This past Friday, on the brink of a government shutdown, our politicians agreed to an approximate $38 billion dollar proposed spending reduction within a proposed debt increase of  $1.7 trillion dollars.  Our budget deficit for the current fiscal year will now "only" be $1.662 trillion dollars. A whopping (sarcastic) -2%. (This makes a joke out of the Republican's supposed conversion to fiscally responsible government.) The whole congressional debate was pure theater that allowed for grandstanding but failed to actually address our ever growing deficit.

There is also the issue of the fact that the 2011 budget was supposed to have been passed by September 30th of 2010. It wasn't.  The Democrats failed to meet this obligation. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats seem to be able to formulate legitimate budgets. Past failure of course does not mean that they will fail in the future, but one has to wonder.

On February 22, 2009, the Post carried this headline: "Obama vows to cut huge deficit in half". Instead of even making a superficial gesture in deficit reduction, Obama's 2012 budget proposal according to the Post will result in a  record $1.6 trillion deficit.

Well what about the Bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and its recommendations for cutting the budget? Seems that his Commission has been regulated to the dust bin of history.  All that Obama seems to have said about it was solely regulated to the State of the Union speech, when he stated that he did not agree with some of the proposals. Based on the lack of any reference or follow-up to the Deficit Reduction Commission recommendations, I take it that the word "some" really meant that all the recommendations have been placed in the trash.

Based on the experience of the past, we are in for more smoke and mirrors that will claim that the deficit will somehow be "reduced" while it is actually being increased.