During one economic adviser’s session in 1999, Bush creates what Draper calls “a sickly silence” when he brings conversation to a halt by ordering Karl Rove, his close friend and trusted political guru, to hang up the president’s coat up for him. And Bush, a stickler for punctuality, once locked Colin Powell, his then-secretary of state, out of a cabinet meeting early in 2001; when Powell arrived and turned the handle, the room “erupted with laughter,” Draper writes.
explain baseline budgeting (first, what it is) and why the democratic party would be in favor it it continuing until the end of time.
Baseline budgeting includes automatic adjustments for inflation and anticipated increases in program participation. Baseline, or current services, budgeting, therefore builds automatic, future spending increases into Congress’s budgetary forecasts.
For example, you propose a new government program: Project X. Project X is going to provide some new service to the people. It does not matter what the service is, the Project X program needs to be funded. So a budget is set at $100 million dollars for 2008. Using baseline budgeting a calculation is made in advance to determine the increase in the budget for Project X for the 2009 budget year based upon a projected increase in the number of people that will take advantage of the program as well as the impact of inflation on the per dollar cost to fund Project X. Let’s say that calculation is 10%, this means Project X will go from $100 million in 2008 to $110 million in 2009 to $121 million in 2010. If this rate of increase is not changed the cost of Project X goes from $100 million in 2008 to $260 million in 10 years and to $673 million in 20 years. Obviously, without an adjustment in the rate of budget increase for the program costs can get out of control.
Why would the a Democrat be in favor of baseline budgeting? The same reason that a Republican would: to assure that their program is fully funded. There should be an independent group that looks at the cost of the program as well as the rate of inflation and the increased demand for the program and then makes the appropriate determination of what funding the program needs. The argument would result from trying to determine what “fully funded” means. And this is where some political linguistic gymnastics can take place.
If your program budget is scheduled to increase from $100 million to $110 million from 2008 to 2009, and you are only budgeted $105 million, you received a $5 million dollar budget increase. However, in order to sell the idea that your program is not fully funded, you would make the claim that your program “suffered” a $5 million cut for 2009. Your opponent would claim that he/she successfully “cut” $5 million dollars of spending. Both sides of the aisle use the notion of “cutting” programs to their political advantage even though the program actually increased its budget.
It’s screwy Washington D.C. accounting at its best. However b2b, if you think that baseline budgeting exists solely within the realm of the Democratic Party then you are kidding yourself. Democrats may be inclined to increase government spending and then pass those expenses on to the citizens in the form of taxes, but Republicans seem no less inclined to increase spending. As opposed to the Democrats however, Republicans don’t seem to want to think about where the money to pay for their programs is going to come from.
(It’s good for me to have an opening photo that is complimentary because when you see me in the flesh I look 30 years older.)
On the next president’s watch our country will make decisions that will affect our lives and our families far into the future.
(Long after I’ll be out of office to face the consequences of those decisions.)
We can’t allow ourselves to become a weaker, less prosperous and more divided nation.
(Weaker, less prosperous and more divided than we have become over the past eight years that is. Never mind the fact that my party has pretty much been in charge the majority of the time.)
Today, as before, the fate of millions across the world depends upon the unity and resolve of the American people.
(Like the unity and resolve that was misused to affect the fate of millions after 9/11. If you people would just unify and toughen up we can win this war in Iraq and everyone will get ice cream and a pony from their Uncle Fredo.)
I’ll talk about this tomorrow on Fred08.com. I invite you to take a look and join us.
(I don’t have anything else to say right now, just go to my website and donate cash. Time for a nap…)
Thompson was on Leno last night and stated that it was a good move to take out Saddam since it prevented the advancement of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. This is the same nuclear weapons program that UN inspectors reported no evidence of leading up to and following the invasion.
Glad to see that things like “facts” are not going to get in the way of a Thompson campaign.
This is a personal web site and does not represent the views or policies of my employer. If you come across an item that you happen to find offensive then you have not been reading long enough because there are lots of things that are offensive on this site. Sorry…
