President Obama released his proposed 2015 budget
this week and in it he declared that the Era
of Austerity was over. The accompanying
chart begs the question, “what the hell is he talking about?”
2009 was the year of stimulus, Tarp and other emergency spending designed to prevent
the end of the world. We were all told that this was a onetime fix and that
once rescued, our spending would return to normal levels. These assurances
weren’t what I would call lies necessarily,
but merely grossly inaccurate promises made with no regard or understanding of
how Washington works. Once spending programs get started, they never truly end…never.
So, as the chart illustrates, that temporary onetime
increase in spending in 2009 quickly became the new normal baseline for all
spending thereafter. Both spending AND revenue have been on a dizzying ascent
ever since, belying the claim by some Democrats that we have a revenue rather
than a spending problem. My question is a simple one. Can someone show me where
this Era of Austerity is on this
chart? Aren’t eras generally
considered to be relatively long, protracted affairs? Perhaps there was an Era
of Austerity that escaped our notice between Tuesday and Friday afternoon
during the third week August of 2011? In the over 5 years of this President’s
time in office, Federal spending has skyrocketed from 2.95 trillion a year to
3.7 trillion a year, while our total debt was climbing from 10 trillion to 17
trillion. If this is austerity, I wonder what abundance would look like?
Webster’s defines austerity thusly:
A
situation in which there is not much money and it is spent only on things which
are necessary.
Can anything that Washington has endured over the
past 5 and a half years be accurately described as austerity?
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