Where Are the Cuts?

From President Bush's Wall Street Journal op-ed available this morning:

Because revenues have grown and we've done a better job of holding the line on domestic spending, we met our goal of cutting the deficit in half three years ahead of schedule. By continuing these policies, we can balance the federal budget by 2012 while funding our priorities and making the tax cuts permanent. In early February, I will submit a budget that does exactly that. The bottom line is tax relief and spending restraint are good for the American worker, good for the American taxpayer, and good for the federal budget. Now is not the time to raise taxes on the American people.

I'm dying to know where the cuts are going to be in this budget. Not, presumably, in defense, Social Security, Medicare, homeland security, or Medicaid. But to balance the budget while keeping the Bush tax cuts permanent without cutting those programs would require really, really steep cuts elsewhere. Certainly I wouldn't advise working together in a bipartisan manner with the White House on this. Either there are going to be some really egregious accounting gimmicks, or else there are going to be some proposed cuts that should be wielded as a mighty political bludgeon against those Republicans who, unlikely Bush, need to run for re-election. Realistically, the best thing that can be done for the budget short-term is to allow the bulk of the Bush tax cuts to expire.

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Comments

Or, you know, he won't actually submit a budget that does exactly that.

Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot on January 3, 2007 09:41 AM

I'm dying to know where the cuts are going to be in this budget.

Define "cut".

Do you mean restrain the rate of growth? Or an actual cut? I presume Bush means the former. I don't know whether that gets you to a balanced budget or not.

Of course, as Krugman pointed out (and you agreed), a balanced budget should be a very, very low priority for the Democrats, so who cares?

Posted by: Al on January 3, 2007 09:49 AM

So he's cut the deficit (which he created) in half, and in just another five years (if nothing goes wrong) we should be able to eliminate it.

What a tool.

Posted by: daveNYC on January 3, 2007 10:00 AM

Ending the war will save a lot of money.

Posted by: Steve on January 3, 2007 10:48 AM

"Either there are going to be some really egregious accounting gimmicks, or else there are going to be some proposed cuts that should be wielded as a mighty political bludgeon against those Republicans who, unlikely Bush, need to run for re-election"

I'll take option (a), please. There already are really egregious accounting gimmicks. The real effects of the Bush tax cuts don't kick in until 2009 (which is one reason why the line that they were "stimulus packages" was so absurd), and Bush is still ignoring the AMT issue and the short term cost of privatising social security, which he still supports.

Posted by: Ginger Yellow on January 3, 2007 10:51 AM

Al, krugman favors the restoration of paygo and the lapsing of the bush tax cuts, so he (among others) cares.

Nicholas, at a minimum, he's going to submit a budget that makes the tax cuts permanent, that we can say for sure!

and Steve, of course the bush budget is going to continue to feature - no money for Iraq! it will also be emergency appropriations (war is over if you want it!).

what i really enjoyed about the bush op-ed is that it is exactly as delusional as everything else that shows up on the wsj op-ed page! he was right at home....

Posted by: howard on January 3, 2007 10:56 AM

I think the plan is to submit a budget that funds the majority of spending by something like taxing Iowan farmers and moms who bake apple pies at a rate of 5,000,000%. There will then be an outcry, and Bush will say "Fine, have it your way, we'll go back to deficit spending. You can't say I didn't try, though."

Posted by: Cryptic Ned on January 3, 2007 11:28 AM

"But to balance the budget while keeping the Bush tax cuts permanent without cutting those programs would require really, really steep cuts elsewhere"

You understate the problem. Even with really, really steep cuts elsewhere you couldn't do it.

It will be interesting to see what Bush comes up with, but it's probably gonna be a combination of accounting gimmicks, unrealistic economic assumptions, AND some egregiously deep cuts in popular programs. The proposed cuts will probably be (1) fairly non-specific in order to blunt the negative political impact, and (2) conveniently deferred until after 2008.

Posted by: Larry M on January 3, 2007 12:33 PM

True that, howard, but pay-go and lapsing of tax cuts won't balance the budget when the money raised through the lapsed pay cuts is spent on domestic spending, as Krugman (and Matthew) advocate.

Posted by: Al on January 3, 2007 12:43 PM

Is there even plausible believability in this being written by Bush? I mean when Lieberman has one, we know that Marshall Whitman probably wrote it, but Lieberman could have produced something like it.

This bugs me, and though I'm not quite sure why, I think it's because someone is putting not only words but ideas in the President's mouth, we're not exactly sure who they are, and they are increasingly unconcerned with hiding it.

Posted by: Pooh on January 3, 2007 01:13 PM

yes, Al, but the point is that we can debate over the absolute level of priority that a balanced budget (more precisely, a balanced general fund) should be given, but what we can't debate is whether the dems are prepared to either cut spending or add revenues, whereas bush has shown us for 6 years that he has no inclination towards either.

Pooh, of course there's no plausible belief that bush wrote this, anymore than bush writes his own speeches. to rephrase what i said before, a machine could have written this oped based on standard tropes on the wsj oped page....

Posted by: howard on January 3, 2007 01:33 PM

The expiration of Bush's tax cuts itself itself be used as a bludgeon. Only it should be called "The Bush Tax Increase."

What Bush calls making tax cuts permanent, Democrats should call "repealing the Bush tax increase." And it should be mentioned in the context that cleaning up the Republicans' mess will take decades. We might not be able to repeal the Bush tax increase right away.

Or perhaps, President Bush signed the tax increase into law for a reason. We'd like to give him the full benefit of the doubt and see how his tax increases work, before we jump in and repeal them.

Posted by: Jalmari on January 3, 2007 01:45 PM

Pooh, of course there's no plausible belief that bush wrote this, anymore than bush writes his own speeches.

Agreed, but for some reason I'm prepared to expect that he doesn't write his speeches - there is a performance aspect of them which still makes them "his". Plus speech-writing is a completely mystifying art form to me (the couple of times I've had to try have been...ugly)

It's not just that we know he didn't craft the form of the piece, it's that we don't really believe he had much to do with the substance, such as there is.

Posted by: Pooh on January 3, 2007 01:48 PM

pooh, you know, that's an interesting oxymoron: bush and substance.

bush has a handful of slogans that he knows are true: tax cuts are good; there's a crisis in social security; we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here.

beyond that, he's got nothin'.

since the ideas are wrongheaded and insubstantial, there's no realistic way for bush to provide substance in any context. some of his ghosts are a little better at the rhetorical trickery, some a little less good, and yes (as david frum told us), the really sharp ones try to insert some substance of their own.

in this case, i think bush "signed off" on the key ideas, because they are his key ideas: "i know best, and everyone has got to work with me."

i'd be surprised if he actually read the thing....

Posted by: howard on January 3, 2007 02:07 PM

Pooh - do you think that other politicians' op-eds are actually written by them? Does the Treasury Secretary write his own op-eds? Does Harry Reid or Al Gore or Tony Blair? Doubtful. And what about, say, CEOs of big companies. If there is an op-ed "by" the CEO of GM or ExxonMobil, who do you think wrote it? Staff is there for a purpose.

Howard - while I agree that Bush hasn't been inclined to cut spending or raise revenue, I'm not sure what that has to do with whether the Democrats are inclined to cut spending or raise revenue. You write "but what we can't debate is whether the dems are prepared to either cut spending or add revenues, whereas bush has shown us for 6 years that he has no inclination towards either". Why can't we debate what the Democrats are prepared to do, regardless of what Bush has done?

Posted by: Al on January 3, 2007 02:27 PM

Al,

See above:

Is there even plausible believability in this being written by Bush? I mean when Lieberman has one, we know that Marshall Whitman probably wrote it, but Lieberman could have produced something like it.

Asked and answered.

(yes, I'm calling Bush a dummy. I've always had a problem with this and have been mystified as to why Republicans didn't. At least until he won, I guess...)

Posted by: Pooh on January 3, 2007 02:36 PM

Al, of course you can discuss whatever you want: i was just using a rhetorical flourish to emphasize the democrats committment to paygo, which means either cut spending or add revenues, whereas bush/hastert/frist/lott/delay have added spending and cut revenues.

(let me make a side note: in terms of absolute level of spending, i don't have a problem with where we are, i have a problem with the distribution of the dollars. but i'm not the one who favored cutting taxes to 17% GDP, which demanded an offsetting spending cut.)

now, if the dems aren't serious about paygo, or if, for instance, they agree to not "count" iraq in terms of paygo, then we can discuss their failings too.

Posted by: howard on January 3, 2007 02:42 PM

OK, Pooh. I've never seen the "dummy" part - we've all gone over Bush's alleged dumbness before, beginning with his grades at Yale (better than Kerry's) and through to his accent ("nukuler") and so forth. I thought the current fashionable term is "not intellectually curious", but suffice it to say that I don't think a dummy can become president, no matter what the last name.

And howard, I don't disagree with anything you write. My only point in my initial comment is that it seems silly for Matthew to talk about whether the Democrats should "work with the White House" on a balanced budget when we already know that he sees a balanced budget as a very low priority. I mean, given the low priority, obviously he doesn't think that the Dems should work with the WH on the subject.

Posted by: Al on January 3, 2007 02:57 PM

"what i really enjoyed about the bush op-ed is that it is exactly as delusional"

It is not delusional, anymore than the Iraq rhetoric of 2002-03 was delusional. Although apparently, sincerity and good intentions will be the way the history will be written.

It was a dishonest delaration of war. The next two years will be a battle for demonization, and Bush is starting to build his coalition of the willing. MY is correct that letting the tax cuts expire may be the only policy Democrats will be able to implement, but what gets passed in order to get vetoed, and how it is framed is what the next two years should be about.

Posted by: bob mcmanus on January 3, 2007 03:32 PM

I was under the impression that projections of future budget deficits took into account that the tax cuts were all going to end in '09 or whenever. That means that Bush is using projections that rely on the tax cuts ending, to argue that the tax cuts shouldn't end.

If we do X, good things will happen, so because good things will happen, we shouldn't do X.

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