Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
An Unwillingness to Fight?
One common argument we’ve heard this election cycle is that people are angry at Republicans because of the GOP’s fecklessness and unwillingness to reign in the Obama Administration. But based on this data, that anger may have been misplaced:
A president’s budget proposal tends to be a curious document that acts as part wishful thinking and part a projection of hope into the future. For example, Bush’s last budget proposal showed a federal government that was on track to produce a balanced budget within a few years. Obama’s budget, on the other hand, anticipated a massive spending increase in the first year (due to stimulus spending) followed by pretty typical increases of about 6 percent per year. That “6 percent” is important because in 2009 it was the rate at which federal spending had grown year over year for almost 30 years. So that is the number the Obama team used as their standard for how quickly spending should keep growing. But after Republicans took control of Congress in 2011, despite what you may have heard, they really did put a brake on federal spending. A really good brake. In fact, since 2011, federal spending has increased at only 1.3 percent per year … the slowest rate since the aftermath of World War II.
That looks pretty good to me, and it translates into some serious money:
The projected federal spending number in this chart is the initial spending projection for those years taken from Obama’s budgets. It represents how the Obama team anticipated to spend given a standard 6 percent yearly increase in spending. The orange bar is what the federal government actually spent.
In 2009, Obama promised to cut federal spending by $100 million, which sounds big but is actually hilariously small in terms of federal spending. By contrast, by 2012 (the first fiscal year the majority GOP could even influence), the Republicans had slashed Obama’s budget expectations by $217 billion … more than 2,000 times that amount.
And that was just the beginning.
The difference between Obama’s 2015 spending projection and what was actually spent was an astounding $697 billion dollars. That’s more money than we spent on Medicaid.
Let that sink in.
In five years, the Republicans managed to hold back Obama’s spending increases by more money than if they actually got rid of Medicaid. And so far 2016 looks like it will hold to that trend.
If you took the difference between Obama’s projected spending and the actual spending appropriated by Congress for all five years, it’s a jaw-dropping difference of $2.5 trillion.
That’s some real walking around money in Federal Budget Terms.
There is an extremely long way to go and plenty of reason for frustration, but this is more than a decent start on the spending front. That they managed this with a hostile president is even more remarkable.
Not bad for the party that never fights.
Published in Domestic Policy, General
Did it overall? Or did it also cement in place the inflated baseline that Obama inherited due to the bailouts, stimulus, and TARP? Again, I’m no expert, but I have been under the impression that the main reason Democrats never actually passed any budgets when they were in power was to perpetuate that baseline. And the sequester seemed to me to be a method for that to continue, but get some military cuts added in along the way?
Now that Ryan passed Boehner’s budget and gave Obama everything that he wanted, has the military’s budget at least been restored?
Are we really celebrating a short term reduction in the rate of increase as ‘fighting and winning’?
As I said, “ill-considered.” If that had happened in 2008, we would now have single-payer, cap & trade, mandatory unionization through card check, 90% top tax rates, massive gun control, few or no rights under the First Amendment, a ban on fracking, and a huge increase in the regulatory state. Be careful what you wish for. Really.
I am not celebrating that as fighting and winning, but I also feel obligated to acknowledge that the sequester had an effect.
I didn’t advocate it in 2008 because I thought both parties recognized the danger. When Reid threw it out in order to pack the Federal Courts (and, in particular, the all-important DC Appeals Court), and after seeing the rapid leftward progression of a party determined to crush political dissent, it is evident to me that if they control Congress and the Presidency the filibuster will be ended more broadly. They will do it when they can – it simply does not matter that the GOP does.
Bush, Rubio, Ben Carson, Rick Perry and Christie all offered some plans during the campaign. Paul Ryan has offered a plan. Jindal has been discussing this for years. Carly discussed the binders full of conservative ideas that the political class won’t act on.
Conservatives are not short on plans. They just have not pushed anything. So I can say anything Ryan or Jindal want to do (this something they have actually worked on) is my plan. It may not be great or perfect but is something. The first step is to push some reform any reform and show that the world doesn’t end. Then more and better reforms become possible.
Which they undid. No points for giving in in two years.
Yes. They will do it to keep and maintain power, while the GOP does not want to make waves
I thought sequestration was significant as a start. It was the first time both parties agreed to be bound by spending restrictions (and without the weasly outs in the early 90s Bush era “cap”). Bargaining for it was a real GOP achievement and it placed restrictions on non-mandatory domestic spending as well as military spending. That’s why it was so terrible for the GOP to decide to just give it up.
Is it a reasonable expectation that spending will decrease in real terms when there is a Dem in the white house?
I guess it should more properly be stated as ‘ they don’t make the argument’ , they may pull of an occasional tie by ‘ voting against cloture on the bill to reduce the funding for the ad hoc committee to study the motion of the….. zzzzz ‘ but it always sounds like back room chicanery. They don’t make a clear case in the face of the media onslaught that this thing, whatever it is , is unconstitutional, anti- freedom, and not the business of the federal government and we shouldn’t even be talking about it and that Democrats are always trying to take away your freedom.
I think you’re giving up too easily. Neither side really wants to give up the filibuster, or any of the rules that give Senators more power to block things. There is a reason that they call it the nuclear option. It takes a truly vicious and evil politician, like Harry Reid, to do something like that, and even he only did it on a very limited basis. There is considerable reason to doubt that Schumer would do the same. Both sides know that the day will come when they are in the minority.
And from the standpoint of a conservative, blocking things is more important for our side than for their side. When the pendulum swings their way, we will need the filibuster. We should not be the ones to throw it out, even if they might (someday).
Brent, I know you are not. I meant the OP overall… And I’m honestly trying to get a feeling for what effect the sequester actually had. At this point I’m thinking it was as the OP stated, a 1.3% increase year by year over the hyper inflated stimulus budget from ’08?
Sure, that beats the wet dream of Obama’s budget increase proposals by
but again, that starts from the baseline of Obama’s increase to the already outrageous baseline from ’08?
Just because the left proposes :
doesn’t make ‘only’ expanding by 1.3% a success. Especially when that 1.3 is derived from a hyper inflated baseline already!
Until conservatives stop counting slower rates of increase as fighting and winning, we are just stewards of the demise along with Democrats. If that is the extent of the party’s commitment to conservatism, no wonder so many just throw up their hands and say ‘Trump!’. It’s not that Trump will advance conservatism and reduce the debt, it’s that neither will Republicans, so why not the populist version of the same old?
Not might, will.
Yet Trump has very little desire (at least from what can be ascertained so far) to reduce spending or shrink the federal government. The implications of this are that Trump’s actions in office will be meaningfully different than his current rhetoric (which is entirely possible) or Trump’s supporters are completely irrational and lack any sort of logic.
Good point. That’s why I thought sequestration was a good start. My expectations were limited from 2010 to 2014. But when the GOP took the Senate back in 2014 my expectations were higher. Even though the Dems still controlled the Presidency, control of both houses in Congress gave the GOP more leverage, but the GOP has seemed to go backwards since then.
Yes it does. It doesn’t make it enough but its not nothing as many around here accuse the Republicans of.
Forcing states to honor Concealed Carry permits across state lines is a “serious conservative idea”? According to whom?
Everyone has their particular issues for which they would lie down on the railroad tracks. This why holding a coalition together is so difficult.
I’ve no expectation of that.
The big difference is Democrats run on a platform of increased spending and follow through.
I generally agree with that. The GOP certainly didn’t use its leverage more successfully but any sort of notion that spending would actually decrease in real terms with a Dem in the white house is fanciful at best and completely delusional at worst.
Its interesting how Dem base thinks the GOP have blocked everything in Obama’s agenda since 2010 or so and the GOP base thinks the GOP has allowed Obama to run roughshod over them. Says a lot about where the mindset and goals of the country.
I’ve never proposed Trump is a rational response or will be effective.
He has created an illusion of fighting the Republicans failures. Republicans abandoned their platform and Trump took it up.
It is (was? since he doesn’t hold positions terribly long) a plank of Trump’s 2A platform.
The pro side is that it would expand and memorialize individual 2A rights.
The con is that it is another heavy handed over reach on the part of the federal forcing it on the states.
Quantitatively you are correct, but from a platform and campaign promise perspective it is potentially worse than nothing.
That was basically my point. Holding a coalition together is hard work. On this particular issue though my best guess is that this is a priority for less than 1/3 of the “base” and likely less than 1/10 of GOP voters. Further, notwithstanding the 2nd Amendment implications, how on earth can a law that coerces states be considered “very conservative”?
Who cares about it being in Trump’s platform. His supporters aren’t “very conservative”. Your thoughtful and objective look at it here as far as the pros and cons of the issue (from a conservative point of view) says a lot about whether or not it is a “very” conservative idea.
Took up the platform or a perceived willingness to fight? 100% no on the former but agree with you on the latter. If it did directly result on Trump though, it is an indictment of the critical thinking skills of his supporters.
Do you think it’s a good idea to assume that your base voters have a certain inability to tell the difference between a sales pitch (“We will stop the Obama agenda!”), and its results? Results that have been reasonably favorable to that same voter base?
It says that someone should be tuning in to a reliable news source and start paying attention.
Its why I blame the Conservative Entertainment Media for most of the anger.
Not to mention the horrible negative impact on gun rights – an issue on which we have been winning for the last 20 years. If you want to convince voters to turn against gun rights, just tell them that whatever state has the lowest bar to concealed carry (granting permits to felons with mental illnesses and whatever) will effectively be granting those permits nationwide. Even I would oppose that, and I am as strong on gun rights as anyone I know.