Happy Anniversary Fiscal Commission: Another Exercise in Fiscal Futility

One year ago on December 1, 2010, President Obama released the findings of The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform which was led by former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Senate Whip Alan Simpson (R-Wy.). The Commission released a report on potential spending cuts that would eclipse $2 trillion from 2012 to 2020.  Recommendations include: selling excess federal real property; repealing The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act which was created in Obamacare; and reducing net spending on mandatory agriculture programs.

The report was very candid when it stated that, “Our country has tough choices to make. We need to be willing to tell Americans the truth: We cannot afford to continue spending more than we take in, and we cannot continue to make promises we know full well we cannot keep.”  Instead of being used to cut spending, the report has been more useful as a virtual paperweight (I am not even sure of any copies were actually printed up).

A year later the country is deeper in debt and yet another report has been ignored.  Congress and the President have a rich history of ignoring spending cut reports.  For example, every two years the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) releases its “Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options.” The latest report (released in March, 2011) identified savings of more than $900 billion over five years.  The cuts/savings are broken up into three categories: Mandatory (savings would total $29 billion in one year and $590 billion over five years); Defense Discretionary (with total of $10 billion in one year and $178 billion over five years); and Non-Defense Discretionary (with a total of $13 billion in one year and $147 billion over five years).  All told these savings would be more than $900 billion over five years.

Individual CBO recommendations include: cancelling the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle; eliminating the Department of Energy’s Grants to States for Energy Conservation and Weatherization; and eliminating Intercity Rail Subsidies.

Instead of going after the meat and potatoes of government excess, the Obama administration issued a press release on November 9, 2011, bragging about its efforts to rein in spending on items such as cell phones, smart phones, laptops and swag including, “plaques, clothing, and other unnecessary promotional items.”  The White House estimates that these savings could amount to billions of dollars. While taxpayers should applaud these efforts as every dollar counts when it comes to saving money, it will take much more than cutting out free Department of Energy t-shirts to get the debt and deficit under control.  And, let’s be honest, how many people do you see walking around with a federal government branded t-shirt or coffee mug? And, if you did, would that really make you feel better about the government?

A major (and appropriate) criticism of the Fiscal Commission was that it included tax increases as a way to bring the budget back into balance.  This criticism, also levied against the Super Committee and CBO, is just a convenient excuse because there is absolutely no reason why a member of Congress couldn’t offer the individual spending cut recommendations as stand-alone pieces of legislation or as a package, excluding the tax increases.

The truth is that the recent collapse of the Super Committee and the one-year anniversary of the ignored Fiscal Commission is evidence that the President (and Congress) are afraid of real spending cuts and only want to pay lip service to real fiscal reform.

In case you are wondering, since the release of the Fiscal Commission, the national debt has increased by $1.2 trillion.  And, there is no end in sight.