Say Anything Blog

Over the weekend I posted about Obama’s plan to shrink the nation’s budget deficits (odd coming after signing the largest single spending bill in history into law) by jacking up taxes on those who already pay the most in taxes and ending the war in Iraq.

I pointed out that what we’ve spent on Iraq in almost six years is less than what he just spent on the stimulus alone, and that we’re probably already well beyond a point of diminishing returns from taxing “the rich.”  But now Phil Klein posts at The American Spectator that Obama’s plans to shrink the deficit probably won’t even get it under $1 trillion.

The Obama administration expects to reduce the deficit by allowing Bush tax cuts to expire on wealthier Americans and saving money in Iraq and Afghanistan. But according to a Tax Policy Center analysis (a group whose work was frequently cited by the Obama campaign during the election), Obama would only be generating $68 billion in additional revenue by 2013 compared to maintaing all of the Bush tax cuts. Also, in FY 2008, the entire cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was $188 billion. In other words, even if we reduce our presence in both countries to zero and roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, it doesn’t get the deficit to under $1 trillion under the most charitable of assumptions.

During the campaign Obama claimed to be a practitioner of pay-as-you-go budgeting, and promised to align any spending increases brought about by an economic rescue bill with spending cuts so that he didn’t ramp up the federal deficit.  As I’ve already pointed out, Obama’s “stimulus” bill cost America more than almost six years of the war in Iraq, and that doesn’t include the health care entitlement he’s already signed into law and the aggressive domestic budget (including increased spending on entitlements) he’s planning on.

How is Obama going to strip six years worth of Iraq war spending, plus more to match his non-“stimulus” spending, from one year’s budget?

I think he could do it, but given that Obama is a tax-and-spend liberal and I don’t think he will do it.