Status Quo Spending is Indefensible

Excessive government spending has become so commonplace, it rarely makes headlines. Yet every so often a government spending scandal comes along that reminds us all just how careless and irresponsible some federal agencies are with taxpayer money. New revelations about extravagant spending at the Government Services Administration (GSA) serve as one of the most egregious examples in recent memory. A report by the GSA inspector general revealed that the agency spent $823,000 for one training conference in October 2010. The conference to train just 300 West Coast GSA employees was held at an opulent hotel near Las Vegas and featured a mind reader, a clown, and a $31,208 reception. The GSA spent $130,000 on travel expenses for six separate trips just to scout the location.

With statistics like these, it's hard to take President Obama seriously when he calls the spending cuts proposed in the House Republican budget "radical." In a speech before the Associated Press days after House Republicans passed our 2013 budget resolution, the president blasted our plan to cut $5 trillion over 10 years.

The president's address -- described by various national media as "combative," "blistering," "a campaign speech," and "a full-frontal assault" -- contained too many mischaracterizations to list individually. The distortions contained in President Obama's description of the Republican budget are so outrageous they are almost a parody of standard political scare tactics and are easily refuted by a quick examination of the actual policies in the budget.

The president's outlandish claims about our proposals are the same tired arguments liberals have relied on for decades to resist reform. However, it is when the president tells the truth about the GOP plan that the speech becomes revealing. President Obama stated that the House Republican budget "proposes massive new cuts in annual domestic spending -- exactly the area where we have already cut the most." It's nice of the president to point out that conservatives in Congress cut $78.5 billion from his 2011 budget request and cut $95 billion from the 2012 budget, bringing non-defense discretionary spending down to 2008 levels. Yet he didn't mean it as a compliment, and that's the problem. Our debt is so massive it requires $50,000 on behalf of every man, woman and child in America to pay off, but our president offers no serious deficit reduction plan of his own while demonizing responsible spending cuts as "radical." Not only does the president have no spending solutions, his speech indicates he doesn't even accept that Washington has a spending problem.

President Obama's "radical" rhetoric was meant to criticize the Republican budget plan, but it should serve as a ringing endorsement to anyone concerned about our fiscal future. With a status quo that has created a $15 trillion national debt, most taxpayers would agree that Washington needs a radically different approach to spending.