If someone said no significant federal spending was cut in 2011, most people would dismiss him or her as being completely ignorant of current events. With partisan fighting and demagoguery lighting up Sunday talk shows and the nightly news, you can’t blame people for feeling this way. The fact is, however, that almost no real spending was cut this year.

In Washington, D.C., two plus two rarely equals four. The beltway math is deceiving at best and intentionally dishonest at worst. Budget cutting recently has consisted of eliminating proposed spending instead of spending that is already being spent. Instead of passing a budget that spends less than the year prior, Congress passes a budget that increases spending at a slightly lower rate. This is not cutting spending.

Using this budgeting tactic the possibilities are endless. On a budget baseline that increases discretionary spending by a trillion dollars for the next year, Congress could ‘cut’ $500 billion off of that baseline, yet spending would still increase by $500 billion. Why not cut more?

The sad reality is that Congress has argued most of the year about these cuts that don’t actually affect real spending. The one time the House of Representatives tried to cut current expenditures almost led to a federal government shutdown.

Debates on spending this year have been focused around cutting President Barack Obama’s most recent budget, which failed to pass in the House and was overwhelmingly rejected in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Even though this budget didn’t pass and almost few in Washington, D.C., want to be caught supporting it, our humble public servants in Congress brag about cutting it by trillions.

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama has proposed legislation that would force Congress to be more honest with how it does its budgets. This legislation is extremely popular with the American public but unsurprisingly not with our representatives in Washington, D.C. This particular proposal may not even get to see the light of day in Congress but at least it’s out there.

The next step is for Congress to stop only making easy decisions, like abdicating their constitutional duties, and make decisions of principle and conscience when it comes to slashing the budget. Making decisions on principle may be too much to ask of many in D.C., so perhaps budgeting like all families do — or at least exerting more control than a pubescent boy — will work. Spending less in fiscal year 2012 than in 2011 would be a much-needed revolution in Washington.

Even with some headway, the fiscal outlook for the next 10 years looks bleak. The federal government is planning to spend tens of trillions of dollars, add trillions to the national debt and run trillion-dollar deficits well into the future. Congress needs to start operating in the realm of the rational if any of our fiscal issues are to be addressed.

Patrick Mocete is senior political science and policy studies major. His column appears occasionally. He can be reached at pdmocete@syr.edu or on Twitter @patrickmocete. 

Published on November 30, 2011 at 12:00 pm