Lankford OpEd: Obama Budget Ignores Fiscal Realities
Obama budget ignores fiscal realities
By Senator James Lankford
A government budget should demonstrate financial priorities, spending and policy to address our nation’s biggest challenges. Sadly, President Obama’s latest budget proposal demonstrates an attitude of “close enough for government work” rather than excellence and forward thinking.
Over the decades, presidential budgets have become more of a campaign document than an actual budget. But, it is the first legal step of the formal budget process. By law, the president’s annual budget request must be delivered to Congress each year by the first Monday in February. This allows the House and Senate budget committees to draft the congressional budget by April 15. Once the congressional budget is complete, the final budget “top-line” numbers are provided to the Appropriations Committees so they can finish their work by Sept. 30. Throughout the process, the essential needs and the long-term financial health of the country must be determined.
Recent modest economic improvements, along with relatively lower deficits, have created an illusion that our nation’s fiscal problems have been solved. This couldn’t be further from the truth. After major budget fights the past four years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office announced that our federal budget deficit for fiscal 2014 “fell” to its lowest level in six years, $483.35 billion. That “lower” deficit is still larger than any deficit under any previous president in history. Worse still, last year’s tax revenue was the highest of any year in history, which means the treasury has more tax money than ever, but our nation spent more than ever. More devastatingly, projections show in the next 10 years, entitlement spending will increase dramatically and the interest payments on our debt will accelerate from more than $200 billion to more than $800 billion a year.
The president’s answer: raise taxes again by $2.1 trillion, increase spending by 60 percent over 10 years, increase the debt by another $8.5 trillion and never balance the budget, ever. The president has proposed seven budgets, none of them balance and none of them articulate a plan for future prosperity. Middle class families do not live like that — a nation that works for middle class families cannot either.