Obama Debt Plan Doesn't Add Up

Now that the Obama administration is releasing an economic plan at the rate of roughly once a week, it almost makes one miss the days when the president contributed nothing at all to the debate. At least during the months when President Obama remained virtually silent regarding the nation's most significant challenges, we were spared calls for $1.6 trillion tax hikes.

Even members of the president's own party, including former President Clinton, have publicly opposed White House plans to raise taxes during a historically difficult recession. But the president's insistence on tax increases is only part of the problem. Even the savings in the president's plan don't add up.

President Obama claims that his plan would reduce the deficit by about $4 trillion, but this assertion does not withstand even minimal scrutiny. Over $1 trillion of the alleged "savings" comes from reductions in war spending based on troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan that were already scheduled to occur. The only way the president can claim the new spending levels represent savings is to compare them to the 2010 surge-level spending, which was universally understood to be temporary.

The same budget gimmicks are deployed to claim savings in non-defense spending. The president again depends on already enacted spending cuts to create the illusion of new savings. The White House claims $357 billion in savings from the 2011 budget passed by the new Republican House after last year's Pelosi/Reid Congress failed to approve an annual budget. Additionally, President Obama's plan counts $992 billion in savings from the Budget Control Act passed in August as part of the debt ceiling negotiations. Only by counting these existing cuts can the president's plan achieve the trillions in savings it advertises.

After factoring in savings either previously enacted, "unrealistic" or "highly questionable," the Heritage Foundation estimates the president's plan only creates $130 billion in new net spending reductions, compared to $1.57 trillion in tax increases. Furthermore, President Obama once again failed to propose serious reforms to entitlement programs -- which are the main drivers of the debt. This fact, along with the damaging tax hikes and phony savings, shows that the president is interested not in solving problems but in scoring political points.

Sadly, this is typical of the president's approach to budgetary negotiations. The president ran away from the recommendations of his own debt commission, released a budget so unserious it was rejected 98-0 in the Democratic Senate, and failed to publicly put forward a plan during the debt ceiling debate.

The White House has failed to lead on budget issues for two years, and its new proposals for tax increases and spending are not realistic solutions to persistent unemployment and the growing debt crisis. As the congressional debt reduction committee begins its difficult work, the country would be better served by serious dialogue from the Obama administration -- not political theatrics.