Obama said that the bill would not add to the deficit. That is far different from saying that it won't add to the debt, because being deficit neutral means that the financing for this bill must come from this year's expenditures. Meaning that we need either massive tax increases or huge spending cuts, probably both, to pay for this as yet unwritten "bill".
Obama apparently missed that distinction, because he's kicked this issue to the SuperCommittee, whose task has been to find reductions over a 10 year period, not over a one-year period. The GOP should hop right on this and point out that raising taxes by $450b in this year isn't likely to stimulate the economy.
It is quite possible that he, like most Americans, can't differentiate between the two.
“Obama said that the bill would not add to the deficit. That is far different from saying that it won’t add to the debt, because being deficit neutral means that the financing for this bill must come from this year’s expenditures”
Correct me if my logic’s off, but for it to be added to the national debt it would have to cause a deficit. Maybe not this year, but at least some year. I realize the trick is forever to present bills as costing us nothing by “backloading” it onto some future budget. Which is dishonest, but in a tricky political way that we can all wink-wink, nudge-nudge about.
Whatever way you cut it, though, we’re not exactly talking about the difference between the deficit and the debt. We’re talking about the difference between this year’s deficit and some future deficit. So when Obama says it’s deficit neutral, he’s hiding that it’s not debt-neutral, yes. But he’s also hiding that its only deficit-neutral for the nearest budget, to say nothing of eventual budgets.