Posted on 07/25/2010 3:21:27 AM PDT by Scanian
No more budget gimmicks? That’s what outgoing White House budget director Peter Orszag promised as the Obama team prepared to take control of the White House. “The president prefers to tell the truth, rather than make the numbers look better by pretending,” he told The New York Times.
But numbers games turned out to be Orszag’s specialty. He’s set to step down at the end of July, but for the last 18 months, he’s presided over a wave of fiscal trickery.
This year’s White House budget, which Orszag played a key role in preparing, is a prime example.
When fiscal planners make a budget, they have to create what’s known as a “baseline scenario.” It’s an assumption about what the future holds without budgetary changes — in essence, “here’s what will happen if we do nothing.” Budget wonks then measure their proposed changes in comparison to what would have happened if we’d stuck to the baseline.
In the federal budget process, the baseline scenario is typically based on current law. But the Obama administration has argued that it should be able to work from “current policy.” That way, they can stuff all sorts of expensive future changes into the baseline
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Pathetic.
what lying knaves these bummerites be
They created the system, they check the system, they monitor the system and they report the system.
We the people have been suckered.
On November 2, we will begin balloting as much as possible of our ruling class out of office. When will public anger boil over, and the “bulleting” of the rest of the ruling class begin?
more trickery than I have ever seen from the government
er
regime
It FAILED to mention (covered up?) the biggest example of all - October 1, 2010, the beginning of FY 2011, will start WITHOUT ANY KIND of Federal Budget. That's right children, next year's budget doesn't exist.
There have been zero hearings, no draft budgets, no committee hearings, no trade off debates, none of the steps leading up to a budget, as written in Federal Law, prior to submitting the budget for BHOI’s signature have been accomplished.
What they, those who control Congress, have done is produce a list of things to spend money on. There is no priority on these items since this list isn't a budget. Isn't nice to know that support ACORN is equally import as supporting the troops? Or, cleaning up the Gulf? Or, reforming the broken school system? Or, real financial reform? Or, ...
And the beat goes on.
Problem:“current policy”
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