When is an increase in spending a “spending cut”?

A logical person would say, “never” and would be correct. However, a special group of people known as politicians have determined to change the meanings of words so that increasing the amount of money spent can actually be called a “spending cut.” While this sounds like something from Orwell’s 1984, it is actually from Washington DC in the here and now. The recent “debt deal” involving raising the “debt ceiling” reportedly contains upwards of $2 trillion worth of “cuts” over the next decade. Never mind that such a “reduction” (if it were actually so) is still only 1/10 of the annual deficit, (or overage) and would not come anywhere close to forcing Congress to balance the federal budget (not that I believe a Balance Budget Amendment would). Congressman Ron Paul said that in order to balance the budget Congress would need to, “implement large spending cuts now, starting with overseas expenditures and unconstitutional bureaucracies.”

Chris Moody of The Ticket writes, “After 10 years’ time… there will actually be an increase of about $1.8 trillion.”

Only by using trickery and sleight of hand can Congress turn a spending increase of $1.8 trillion into a “cut” of nearly $2 trillion. They have done this by changing the definitions of words in such a way that a reduction in a proposed increase is considered a “cut.” According to CBO (Congressional Budget Office) estimates Social Security will “cut” $12 billion by 2021 even though spending caps will increase from $623 million in 2012 to $1.3 billion in 2017 through 2021. That is because the increases in spending were reduced by $47 million in 2012 and as much as $2.3 billion in 2021. Spending still goes up, though by a smaller amount than previously projected. This is just one example of how Congress plans to “cut” the deficit by $2 trillion over the next 10 years while increasing spending by nearly the same amount.