Every time I hear pundits or politicians going on about “budget cuts,” I getÃ?Â?Ã?¢Ã?¢?Ã?¬Ã?Â?Ã?¦well, really annoyed. Because I know that almost none of the “cuts” are cuts at all. The amounts spent will still be larger next year than they were the year before, which was larger than the year before that. (And of course that’s after inflation is taken into account.) They call “budget cuts” what are mere cuts in the rate of increase, or — even worse — cuts in the increases that some others had wanted or projected or fantasized. Most people hear those reports and reasonably interpret “budget cuts” to mean that the budgets are actually being cut, i.e., that they are getting smaller. Nope.
Mirabile dictu, the Washington Post (requires simple registration) recognized today that the federal budget is up, up, up. Anyone who’d like a clear account of what’s happening with the federal budget, and a clear case for authentic cuts (the old-fashioned kind, in which the amount of money actually falls) should read Downsizing the Federal Government, by my colleague Chris Edwards.