Daniel J. Mitchell of the Cato Institute's Cato@Liberty crunches budget numbers and shows how the budget can be balanced (in 10 years) if spending increases are held down to a net spending growth of 2.5%. Personally, I'd like to see it balanced a whole lot sooner and maybe Vice President Ryan can show us how.
The dishonest Washington budget math Mitchell refers to in the article works as follows: any attempt to have Federal spending grow at a rate (adjusted for inflation) that is lower than the population grows is called a "cut" in Washington. Notice, it is still growing, just slower than the population grows. Example: the population grows at 2%, the budget grows at 1%, Washington says they are cutting spending. They lie, they are only cutting "per capita spending."
The other dishonesty is that the federal budget doesn't include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other so-called "entitlements." As the Baby Boomer bulge retires, those costs will shoot up while the cohort's payroll contributions will drop like a stone. When Mitchell talks of balancing the budget, I wonder if he covers those off-budget costs too?
