The price of energy dropped about 25% in 2001, down from the Clinton spike of year 2000. Inflation for the year was about 2.8% without this energy spike. You then must add the increase in population which was about 1.5% for the year 2001. 2.8% + 1.5% = 4.3% increase needed for status quo spending.
Fiscal Year 2002 proposal as submitted in Spring 2001 Total Expense............................1960.6
Fiscal Year 2001 comparison.........................................................................................1856.2
increase Year over Year as submitted by the President...............................................+ 5.62% MORE THAN triple the rate of inflation
The President only has veto discretion over -- the discretionary budget.
- The 2001 enacted discretionary budget was 635 billion.
- The 2002 submitted discretionary budget is 660 billion.
- The increase in submitted discretionary budget is 4.0%
- The increase in the CPI 2.8%(not including energy) plus the increase in U.S. population of 1.5% equals a 4.3% increase needed in spending to break even with 2001 levels of spending.
- The 2002 discretionary budget thus reduces the currect levels of discretionary spending by (4.0% - 4.3%) yielding a -0.3% reduction in discretionary spending.
You can even take this a step further and calculate the discretionary spending without the military spending spike needed because of you-know-who. This would take the discretionary spending increase to 3.1% instead of 4% for the year 2002.
Spending increases by department are as follows(All except Military and Education are below the inflation rate plus population increase).
Agriculture -1.4
Commerce -0.4
Defense +14.1
Education +4.6
Energy -0.5
HHS +2.8
HUD +1.9
Interior -0.4
Interntl Affairs+1.2
Justice -1.1
Labor -0.6
Transportation -2.1
Treasury -0.7
Vet Affairs +1.0
Corp of Eng. -0.6
EPA -0.2
FEMA -0.2 (Even NWO Enforcement is being cut)
NASA +0.3
Nat. Sci Fd. +0.1
Sm Bus Admin +0.3
SSA +0.3
All of this of course should just be a first step!