As Budget Committee chairman, Paul Ryan is the point person for Republican efforts on the budget, and true to form, he is using his position to mislead and misinform. Here he is on NPR's "All Things Considered":
You know, that's the thing is this budget is so out of control on spending and taxing that I'm really disappointed in it. I was really hoping that the president would show some reforms that can get our debt under control. Instead, what we have is 1.6 trillion in new tax increases, 8.7 trillion in new spending. He's going to be adding 13 trillion to the debt over the course of his budget. And that to me is very dangerous, because this is accelerating our trajectory toward a debt crisis versus taking on the issue.
$8.7 trillion is a huge number for new spending, and seems like something I would have heard from other sources. But I haven't, and there's a good reason why: it's not true. Glenn Kessler explains:
In response to a question about how this number was obtained, the Committee staff provided a chart that showed that outlays would be frozen every year for the next 10 years at the 2012 level of $3.729 trillion.
Thus, while in 2021 Obama proposes to spend $5.697 trillion, the Committee would still be spending $3.729 trillion, for a difference of almost $2 trillion. Add up the difference for every year, over 10 years, and it amounts to nearly $8.7 trillion, which the committee calls "new spending."
In other words, the Committee assumed the president needs to freeze all spending, without adjustments for inflation or population growth, for 10 years. Moreover, it makes this assumption for all spending, even mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which need to be changed by law.
So, Ryan takes Obama's budget, freezes spending at 2012 levels for 10 years -- so that federal spending falls to an all-time low of 15.1 percent of GDP -- sets that as the new baseline, and then counts everything above as "new spending," even when it's nothing new, and simply an automatic part of the budget, by way of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. At the very least, this is stunningly dishonest. But, since Ryan is an official "budget wonk," he'll face little scrutiny for his charade of an analysis.
