Trump's Budget Guts The Safety Net, And Other Myths

IBD ^ | 05/24/2017

[SeekAndFind]

Big Government: President Trump's budget is taking its share of hits for supposedly indulging in fanciful accounting, unrealistic assumptions and proposing massive cuts to vital safety-net programs. How much of that is true? You decide.

Trump's budget plan proposes to balance the federal budget in 10 years and do so entirely through spending restraint. That alone is enough to raise the hackles of the Washington, D.C., swamp creatures. But critics have other complaints. The main ones:

It relies on unrealistic economic projections. Critics say Trump's budget numbers rest on a rosy scenario of future economic growth. The New York Times describes the economic forecast — in its news story — as "wildly optimistic."

Are they?

It's true that numbers in Trump's economic forecast are rosier than in other long-term forecasts. But that's because Trump expects his policies to increase economic growth.

Even so, Trump's forecast is hardly "wild." In fact, it assumes that annual GDP growth doesn't reach 3% until 2021, and never exceeds it after that. Over the next five years, Trump forecasts GDP growth to average a modest 2.8% a year.

Contrast these projections with the eight budgets Obama put out. In his first budget, Obama forecast GDP growth of 4% in 2011 and 4.6% in 2012. (Actual results: 1.6% and 2.2%). In all his budgets, the five-year GDP growth forecasts averaged 3.3%.

Yet somehow we don't recall budget experts gnashing their teeth about Obama's "wildly optimistic" growth forecasts.

Also, is it unrealistic to expect growth to top out at 3% and remain there for several years? In the past, average annual growth rates, including recessions, were higher than 3%.

MYTH: It guts the social safety net.

Trump's proposed spending cuts for entitlement programs have been described as "massive," "sweeping," and on the surface,

[SeekAndFind]

[ClearCase_guy]

The best safety net is a job.

[SeekAndFind]

But Let’s talk about the term “CUTS” again.

Is it really a cut in overall spending, or is it simply a cut in spending INCREASE? If the latter, then there are NO CUTS.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that medicaid’s budget is 100 billion. With a proposed increase of 5% which would put the new budget at 105,000,000,000. A proposal is given to cut the increase in half to 2.5%, which means the budget is increasing to 102,500,000,000. Democrats will claim that medicaid is being cut by 2.5 billion ( actually, to make it sound more dire, they’d say that it is being cut IN HALF ). When in reality it’s actually INCREASING by 2.5 billion.

They pull that out that lie every time someone tries to get spending under control and the Republicans allow them to do it. I wonder if Trump is as good a communications man as he claims to be....

[ClearCase_guy]

I intend to have that conversation with Liberals:

"Look, Obama didn't really care about people who needed help. He didn't spend that much. Trump is much better -- that's why Trump is spending more money on the safety net than Obama ever did. Yes, adjusted for inflation. Trump is being more generous than Obama. That's not what you heard? Well, that's because the media lies to you. They said Trump was cutting spending on the safety net? No. It's the opposite. Trump is spending more than Obama. Just a fact. So, you might want to watch out when you believe everything the media tells you."

[LostPassword]

We currently have dozens of these


When we should have something like this


There's plenty of opportunity for cutting without hurting society or individuals who want a "net" in case that fall rather than an air bag to jump into on purpose.

[FatherofFive]

The best safety net is a job.

And the best motivation to get a job is no safety net.

[pgkdan]

The best safety net is a job.

What are you? Some kind of greedy capitalist? I'll bet you're a white male. Check your privilege! /S

Geez...I felt dirty and stupid just typing that!

[Jarhead9297]

If factual Trump continues the status quo

[Steve_Seattle]

Interesting info. As usual, the media and Dems characterize a slower rate of INCREASE as a “cut.” Also, they casually accepted Obama’s much more optimistic GDP estimates (which did not even come close to the reality), while calling Trump’s more modest projections “wildly optimistic.”

[SeekAndFind]

Obama took steps to immediately boost spending in 2009, including pushing through the giant stimulus bill. The CBO has reported that stimulus outlays were $114 billion in 2009.

In Bush’s last budget, he proposed that 2009 spending be $177 billion above the 2008 level, but the actual increase ended up being a massive $386 billion. So you can see that Obama and Congress were mainly responsible for the huge spending leap in 2009, not Bush.

Spending growth in Obama’s first six years:

2009: 13%,
2010: 6%,
2011: 2%,
2012: -3%,
2013: 5%,
2014: 2%


Since Congress holds the purse strings and passes the budget, We ought to ask ourselves who CONTROLLED Congress in 2009 and 2010 and who controlled Congress ( at least one half of the house ) after that.

We have based our budget's size on the BASELINE of the outrageous spending of the past ( especially Obama's 13% increase in 2009 ).

BASELINE BUDGETING HAS GOT TO STOP!

[NorthMountain]

"Note, however, that spending continues to climb" ...

And that means unserviceable debt piled upon unserviceable debt ... and that's the problem. If this is the best we can get even with TRUMP ... we're screwed.