It's Not Just Me, Folks...

The signatories to the following memo are all members of the “Fiscal Seminar,” a group that has been meeting together for several years at the Brookings Institution.

To: President Barack Obama
From: Robert Bixby, William Galston, Ron Haskins, Julia Isaacs, Maya MacGuineas, Will Marshall, Pietro Nivola, Rudolph Penner, Robert Reischauer, Alice Rivlin, Isabel Sawhill, Eugene Steuerle
Subject: A Budget We Can Believe In
Date: January 27, 2009

Excerpting...

The costs of stabilizing the financial markets and stimulating economic growth will generate a large increase in our national debt. We will have to borrow money in domestic and international capital markets to finance this debt, and without a serious commitment to long-term fiscal restraint, lenders will eventually question the nation’s fiscal credibility. They may respond by reducing the share of their portfolios devoted to U.S. government debt or by charging higher interest rates. In the extreme, the reluctance to buy U. S. debt could cause a crisis in international capital markets. No one can describe the risks precisely, but Wall Street’s recent troubles demonstrate that the perils of over reliance on debt can come swiftly and in unpredictable ways. What is predictable is that if the long-term problem is not confronted, interest costs will absorb a growing proportion of our budgetary resources and, together with growing health costs and Social Security, will threaten to crowd out spending on programs for the poor, children, and improving the nation’s infrastructure. Moreover, our dependence on foreign creditors and the resulting mortgage on future national incomes will diminish American standards of living for generations to come.

Folks... the authors of this "Letter to President Obama" are not a bunch of "Right Wingers" or "Republican partisans." Robert Bixby works for the Concord Coalition. Will Marshall works for The Progressive Policy Institute. C. Eugene Steuerle works for The Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Maya MacGuineas is with The Committee For A Responsible Federal Budget. Rudolph Penner and Robert Reischauer are with The Urban Institute. And Pietro Nivola, William Galston, Ron Haskins, Julia Isaacs, Alice M. Rivlin, and Isabel Sawhill are all with The Brookings Institution.

Continuing to excerpt...

First, you have pledged repeatedly to scrub every line item in the current budget with an eye to finding items that are either ineffective or outdated. We do not believe that this effort will be credible unless it produces significant savings from both programs and tax expenditures.

Does ANYONE believe that President Obama will personally follow through on his campaign pledge? Laying that aside, does ANYONE believe that President Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi will soon be CUTTING rather than GROWING government spending and liabilities...? Anyone...???

Continuing to excerpt...

Second, the stimulus package should not worsen the long-term fiscal outlook. To the extent that it includes items that increase the long-term budget deficit, offsetting long-term spending cuts or revenue streams should be proposed.

Oh, pleeease...! Of COURSE the Obama/Pelosi/Reid "stimulus" packages are going to worsen the long-term fiscal outlook. (Just as the Bush/Pelosi/Reid/McCain "stimulus" package did!)

Continuing to excerpt...

We believe, moreover, that Congress must re-impose caps on discretionary spending as soon as the economy begins to recover from the recession.

Yeah. Sure. From your mouths to God's ear.

First of all, for most politicians of BOTH Parties, the word "discretionary" has no real meaning. Congresses and Presidents routinely and deliberately mislabel bills and spending measures as "Emergency" measures whenever and wherever they desire to evade abiding by "discretionary" spending limits. We all know this. Who's kidding who? Second of all, who actually believes that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, liberal Democrats, or the RINO contingent of the GOP has any interest in LIMITING spending - let alone CUTTING spending?

Continuing to excerpt...

The long-term budget challenge can be stated succinctly. Three large programs—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—now constitute almost one-half of non-interest federal spending and are growing faster than tax revenues because of soaring health costs and the aging of the population. If we fail to reform these spending programs and insist on maintaining the tax burden where it is has been over the past 50 years (about 18 percent of GDP), deficits will soar, and the public debt is likely to exceed 100 percent of the GDP within 25 years. That compares to 37 percent at the end of fiscal 2007.

It’s entirely understandable that public concern over the long-term budget problem has now been swamped by the financial crisis and accompanying recession. But as President you can’t afford to lose sight of these inconvenient truths. The budget deficit for fiscal 2009 is estimated at $1.2 trillion by CBO, and this excludes any new spending as part of a stimulus bill. The federal debt owed to the public may increase by considerably more than 50 percent over the next two years. Although large debt increases occurred in the early 1980s, they did not occur as quickly. Moreover, there are two important differences from that era. First, we are now more dependent on foreign private and government investors to buy our debt. Second, relative to the size of the economy (GDP), Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are much larger now than they were then, and they are expected to grow more rapidly as the oldest baby boomers begin to retire. Consequently, the budget deficit will contract more slowly than usual as the economy recovers.

OK. A couple points...

First of all, enough with the sugarcoating. NO! It's NOT "completely understandable" that public concern over the long-term budget problem has now been swamped by the financial crisis and accompanying recession! That's just bull! The American People have been sold a bill of goods by the Dempublicans, Republicrats, and the media. The Bush/Reid/Pelosi/McCain "stimulus package" was a disaster. The Bush/Reid/Pelosi/McCain TARP "bailout" was a disaster. Obama plans to "double down" on these past reckless, irresponsible, counter-productive policy failures and thanks to the past political cover of the Bush administration and McCain campaigns (not to mention RINO acquiescence in general) and the continuing media insistance that "something" needs to be done, Democratic policies will lengthen and worsen the recession all while further clouding long-term economic prosperity.

Second of all, allow me to reiterate a point of HUGE importance: The budget deficit for 2009 is is estimated at $1.2 trillion by CBO, and this excludes any new spending as part of a stimulus bill.

Got it...?!?! "

..."AND THIS EXCLUDES ANY NEW SPENDING AS PART OF A STIMULUS BILL."

..."AND THIS EXCLUDES ANY NEW SPENDING AS PART OF A STIMULUS BILL."

..."AND THIS EXCLUDES ANY NEW SPENDING AS PART OF A STIMULUS BILL."

I just wanna make sure we're all on the same page, here, folks.

Continuing to excerpt...

Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are expected to constitute 1.8 percent more of the GDP in 2016 than they did in 2008. That may not sound like much, but if the growth were to be financed entirely with tax increases, it would imply an overall tax increase of almost 10 percent above historical levels - and that would only be the first of many tax increases to follow. If it were financed by cutting all other non-interest programs including defense, the across-the-board reduction would have to be more than 20 percent compared to baseline levels. Even if a number of inefficient and low priority programs are eliminated, it would not be possible to fulfill your election promises - to expand health insurance coverage or to increase public investment in education, infrastructure, and research on alternative energy sources, among many others - without digging our long-term fiscal hole even deeper.

Folks. Again. This isn't "Right Wing propaganda" or "Republican partisanism." These are the simple non-partisan, non-deniable facts.

Continuing to excerpt...

We believe you should do more than express your concern about the danger of escalating future deficits. You should move quickly to reduce them without endangering near-term economic recovery. First, you should give high priority to putting Social Security on a sound fiscal basis to reduce future deficits and show our creditors that we are taking serious steps to manage our national finances. Second, you should take quick action to reduce the growth of Medicare by shifting to payment systems that reward effective treatments and discourage wasteful spending.

(*SIGH*) We'll see. I suppose we'll... er... hope.

Anyway... let's HOPE that our new president is indeed open to positive CHANGE in the way Washington conducts the nation's business. I for one pray he is.