Editor’s Note: The projected Defense budget for 2010 is around $700 billion.
The Obama administration announced a freeze on nonmilitary discretionary spending. While even flat budgets usually see increases for inflation, this proposal would not.
In addition to mandatory spending – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – defense and national security programs are exempted from the freeze.
As realities of unemployment and a weak economy weigh heavily on Washington, liberal lawmakers question President Obama’s move.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) said the President is focusing on the wrong part of the budget.
“There are some agencies of government, including the Defense Department, where we can actually cut spending,” Sanders said.
According to the National Priorities Project, Defense spending consists of at least 20% of the national budget. It is the second largest piece of the pie behind social security, and the US spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined.
Non-military discretionary spending consumes about one-seventh of the national budget. Programs that could be affected are commerce, energy, education, interior, NASA and more.
The administration says the cuts would not be across the board. Instead, while some programs would receive deep cuts, others would receive spending increases.
Rob Nabors, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the President’s priorities did not receive cuts. On a conference call with reporters, he said specifics would be released with the budget Monday.
This announcement comes as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the budget outlook looks bleak. The government could rack up $6 trillion of debt over ten years.
The President’s spending freeze would cut just a fraction of that, about one-quarter of a trillion dollars, or $250 billion, over ten years.
Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said it is hypocritical to cut programs after increasing the deficit with war spending and tax cuts on the wealthy during the Bush administration.
Brown said, “Our response to that is cut spending on infrastructure or cut spending on human needs doesn’t fly with me.”
While liberals are uneasy at first glance, conservative Democrats and Republicans applaud the President’s proposal.
Senator John McCain (R-Ariz) referred to a line used during the presidential campaign when then candidate Obama criticized his proposal to cut nonmilitary discretionary spending.
“I think that the President understands now how serious this problem is, and it requires hatchets and scalpels. It requires the hatchet to bring it under control and it requires the scalpel to eliminate the wasteful and unnecessary spending that characterizes so much of this bloated spending process we’re in,” McCain said.
Robert Greenstein, Director of the liberal leaning Center on Budget Policy Priorities, said this proposal is both “symbol and substance.” He said it is “a saavy move” as the President is trying to quell fears of runaway government spending. “It will be harder for the President and those who want to see further jobs legislation to get it passed, unless it’s accompanied by…some initial move, even if modest, on the longer term deficit front,” Greenstein said.
Senate Democrats have begun discussions about a jobs package which could is estimated to cost around $80 billion. The spending freeze is proposed to begin in 2011, after Democrats hope a jobs proposal would be enacted.
The House passed its jobs package in December.
You can follow Leigh Ann Caldwell on Twitter and listen to an audio version of this story at FSRN.
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Sooner or later, we are going to *have* to drastically cut the military budget. When a country with 5% of the world’s population spends as much as the rest of the world combined on its armed forces, that is unsustainable.
Oh Im sure they are, BUT, being the great CROOKS they are, rest assured they will find a way around, over or under it. Never fear.
Jess
http://www.online-privacy.int.tc