Why Washington Budget Cuts are not Cuts

Whenever politicians in Washington talk about budget cuts most people tend to think that cutting spending means reducing the amount being spent. Not so in Washington D.C. Since the 1970’s the Federal Government has been using what called Base Line Budgeting.        
        
Under Base Line Budgeting what is called a cut is actually a projected reduction in the rate of increase usually the projection is made over ten years. This because Base Line Budgeting has automatic built in increases in spending over and above the previous year. As a result any reduction in this projected future spending is there by considered a cut even though the actual amount of spending is still increased. Further most of the alleged cuts are more than five years in the future and hardly ever actually occur.

The fact that this is the case can be shown in the deal to raise the debt limit passed on August 2, 2011. It raises the debt limit $2.5 trillion with projected cuts of $2.5 trillion. So if these were real spending cuts there would be no reason to raise the debt limit.

It turns out that freezing spending at current levels would produce $9 trillion in projected cuts so any talk of cuts from the Federal Government less than $9 trillion can not include real cuts because in Washington cuts are not cuts.