More details on budget prestidigitation.

This correspondent, in pursuit of accuracy and fairness, ammends an earlier dispatch on the Magic That Is Federal Budgeting. Here we include spending, revenue, and the resulting deficit from 2008 through the estimate 2013 budget, courtesy of the OMB. Numbers in 2005 Gigabucks. The 2012 and 2013 entries are estimates:

• 2008: receipts = $2288.1  outlays = $2703.8  surplus (deficit) = $(415.7)
• 2009: receipts = $1899.0  outlays = $3173.4  surplus (deficit) = $(1274.4)
• 2010: receipts = $1927.9  outlays = $3081.0  surplus (deficit) = $(1153.0)
• 2011: receipts = $1998.7  outlays = $3126.3  surplus (deficit) = $(1125.6)
• 2012: receipts = $2089.4  outlays = $3212.5  surplus (deficit) = $(1123.1)
• 2013: receipts = $2409.1  outlays = $3157.4  surplus (deficit) = $(748.3)

During the current Adminstration's budget authority (2010-2013) we see that outlays increase, except for a small estimated decrease of $55.1B in 2013. The deficits since 2010 are at a steady $1100-1200B until 2013, when magic occurs(!) and they suddenly plumment by nearly $500B. This is caused by increased revenue, in fact about $9 of new revenue for each $1 of spending reduction. And projections of spending for 2014 and beyond? Rising steadily, with deficit reduction coming from ever increasing revenue.

This is why, the humble opinion of this correspondent, the Administration's claim that "we've cut over two trillion dollars from the deficit" over the next ten years through a "balanced" approach is just so much malarkey. Or, if we may be as bold to state ("truth to power" as the Left loves to claim),  a lie.

We do not blame the continuing death spiral of increasing spending only on the White House, although they do enjoy proposing more and more programs to cure this ill and that; no Congress cannot be persuaded to abandon the mathematics of More Spending = Reelection, and nor perhaps can the People face weaning from the Government Teat. As Uncle Billy said to George Bailey, "this is a pickle, George, this is a pickle!" But shall we at least start by being honest about what are doing?