The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 states the president must submit a budget to Congress between the first week in January and the first week in February. Last Monday, President Barack Obama submitted his budget.

Regrettably, the extra time taken by the White House failed to make the final product worthwhile. The president’s fiscal year 2012-13 budget followed in a succession of budgets that have failed to address the fundamental problem of the federal budget, spending and have failed to pass through Congress or supply Washington with any leadership.

The fiscal year 2012-13 budget claims to stabilize the debt as a percent of the economy through optimistic gross domestic product estimates, taxes and numinous savings in spending over the next decade. Assuming all of Obama’s assumptions and policies come to pass and the nation’s deficit never falls below $575 billion, there is still an unsustainable increase in growth of the nation’s debt after 2022.

If the president’s best case scenario doesn’t pan out, there is no need to wait 10 years for our debt to continue its climb to oblivion. In his budget, the president does not even come close to balancing the budget but increases the size of the budget from $3.8 trillion in 2013 to $5.8 trillion in 2022.

The administration may be acting like it’s brave with its $4 trillion in spending cuts during the next 10 years, but this is merely a distraction. If one was to strip out budget gimmicks like make-believe war savings from not continuing the Afghanistan and Iraq wars at full force well into the future, even though that was never the plan, we are faced with $1.5 trillion in increased spending and $1.9 trillion in increased taxes.

When the aforementioned budget gimmicks — the war spending gimmick accounts for $2 trillion by itself — are taken out of the budget, there is a mere $400 billion in deficit reduction. That is a lot of money, don’t get me wrong, but in the grand scheme of things it’s a drop in the bucket. The president’s fiscal year 2012-13 budget proposes to spend $47 trillion during the next 10 years. With these proposed cuts the debt will increase 76 percent instead of 78 percent. That’s $11 trillion dollars that will be added to the national debt.

President Obama fails in his budget to do what any leader must do at a minimum: lead. He kicks the can down the road, leaving the hard decisions and unfair responsibility to future generations.

In his budget message, the president states the ‘basic bargain’ of the American dream has eroded. The 2013 budget is offered as a solution to this problem. Unfortunately, the budget submitted by the Obama continues this erosion. The budget ensures we will continue to put the full faith and credit of the United States in jeopardy, and that the millennial generation as well as their children and grandchildren will owe mountains of debt to creditors that is no fault of their own.

Patrick Mocete is senior political science and policy studies major. His column appears every Thursday. He can be reached at pdmocete@syr.edu.  

Published on February 22, 2012 at 12:00 pm