Obama’s Pricey Budget is Just a Big Government Political Pamphlet

It’s been a while since federal
budget proposals by the White House or congressional leaders
(individual legislators and independent groups are a different
matter) were much more than political pamphlets, so President
Obama’s proposed Fiscal Year 2015 budget
continues an American tradition, albeit, a crappy one. At
$3.901 trillion, though (up from $3.651 trillion in 2014 and
rising to $5.912 trillion in 2024), the president’s pamphlet seems
a tad on the pricey side. Then again, the all-you-can-eat
government it proposes couldn’t possibly be done on the cheap, and
nobody really expects Congress to adopt the whole package.

President Obama
remarked at Powell Elementary School in Washington, D.C., “the
budget is not just about numbers, it’s about our values and it’s
about our future,” and his expensive pamphlet lays out what he
thinks those values ought to be, and how that future should look.
To be honest, he seems to think it should look a bit like SimCity, with
everything carefully planned and arranged. It includes “45
high-tech manufacturing hubs where businesses and universities will
partner to turn groundbreaking research into new industries and new
jobs,” “access to…high-quality preschool and other early learning
programs,” “apprenticeships to connect more ready-to-work Americans
with ready-to-be-filled jobs,” and “over $1 billion in new funding
for new technologies to help communities prepare for a changing
climate today.”

Also
in the budget is an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit,
tax credits for child care, and for college loans—all billed as
“tax cuts” for “13.5 million working Americans” and the middle
class. The cuts/credits would be offset by “closing tax loopholes,
including the so-called ‘Gingrich’ and ‘Carried Interest’
provisions that let high-income professionals avoid the income and
payroll taxes other workers pay.”

In his
message to Congress, the president bills this all as tax code
simplification, but it looks more like shuffling benefits around
among favored and disfavored categories of Americans.

And, again, the White House’s proposed budget projects
continuing increases in federal spending with big deficits (that
$3.901 trillion in outlays is based on $3.337 trillion in receipts)
at a time when the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that “the gap
between federal spending and revenues would widen steadily after
2015…a path that would ultimately be unsustainable.”

The CBO’s warnings are based on
slightly lower federal outlays than those foreseen by the White
House, and generally lower revenues. Possibly of interest, the CBO
now forecasts lower gross domestic product over the next few years
than was originally believed. According to a February 28 report,
“From the earlier projection to the more recent, CBO’s projection
for potential output in 2017 declined by 7.3 percent.” That just
might have an impact on resources available to the federal
government.

Then again, expensive and micromanaging though it may be, nobody
really expects the president’s budget to be adopted. Josh Voorhees
at Slate calls it a “liberal
wish list.”

But that doesn’t mean the federal government looks like it’s
poised to pass something more realistic.