Matthias Shapiro, the guy behind Political Math, has produced another short but illuminating video in which he discusses President Obama’s announced budget freeze. Like his other visualizations, which include the Obama Budget Cuts Visualization and The National Debt Road Trip, this one cuts through the chaff and puts things in perspective. In short, the freeze is a joke.
Shapiro then points out the inherent dishonesty of how they are presenting this ”freeze”.
First of all, I hate the “we’re saving $250 billion over 10 years” line. It is a piece of crass political rhetoric and I’m disappointed that the administration would use it. If they actually implement a three year freeze on the portion of the budget they’re talking about (which is a big if, but let’s assume the best), why measure the effects in the space of 10 years?
The answer is “To make the freeze look bigger”. They’re basically just basing the extended savings off of projected interest payments and “savings” due to the fact that the baseline on that portion of the budget hasn’t moved. It is setting a dangerous data precedent where politicians realize that all they have to do is calculate a projection out as far as they need in order to get the numbers they want.
Seriously. This is a three year freeze but they stretch it out to ten years in their calculations simply because 10x is a larger number than the real number, a mere 3x. Your intelligence is being insulted and it should piss you off. The statist triad of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi tell you that they believe that you are a moron every single day with their shallow obfuscations and pathetic word games, such as their tortured destruction of the word ‘reform’. They clearly confuse us with their myrmidons.
Shapiro also points out how ridiculous it is to claim that you are saving money simply because you are not spending it:
As a slapdash example, a politician could project that they will increase spending by 5% next year and then decide at the last moment to increase it by 3%. They could then spin that decision to increase by a smaller amount as a decision to “cut” their spending (which wasn’t real spending, only projected spending) by 2%.
I remember a version of this audacious dishonesty back when the GOP held the house in the mid 90s. Medicare spending was slated to increase by something like five percent and the republicans wanted to instead increase spending by only three percent. The Democrats and their fawning media spun it as the GOP slashing medicare spending. For the most part, the leftist scare tactics worked.
Check out the Political Math Blog, and follow him on twitter at @PoliticalMath.
