AP's Crutsinger Fails to Explain Why U.S. Spending Continues to Increase
Two paragraphs don't seem to belong together in Martin Crutsinger's Associated Press dispatch on the government's Monthly Treasury Statement for December. But there they are.
Here's the first paragraph of interest in Martin's missive ("Federal budget deficit narrows to $80B in December"):
Government spending during this period totaled $902.6 billion, an increase of 3.1 percent over the same period a year ago.
Now watch Crutsinger tell readers why spending should be down, perhaps without even realizing it (bold is mine):
The 2010 deficit was $1.29 trillion and followed an all-time high of $1.41 trillion in 2009. The government spent billions of dollars in that period to stabilize the financial system and try to jump-start the economy after the recession hit.
The operative numerical descriptor isn't "billions of dollars," it's "hundreds of billions of dollars."
In any event, if the described spending is no longer occurring during fiscal 2011, why is spending still up by roughly $28 billion? Inquiring minds want to know, but apparently Marty Crutsinger either doesn't want to know, or doesn't want us to know.
Here are a few, by no means all-inclusive reasons totally unrelated to stimulus explaining why spending has continued to sprout:
- Department of Defense, up $11.4 billion -- This may be necessary in the circumstances, but the irony of ironies is that Crutsinger spent much of fiscal 2009 obsessed with how "the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan" were causing the deficit, when increases in spending on those wars couldn't possibly have explained more than 5% of the reason why the reported deficit went from $455 billion in fiscal 2008 to 1.4 trillion in fiscal 2009. In fiscal 2011, a 6.5% DOD increase making up over one-third of this year's increase in spending is somehow unimportant.
- Health and Human Services, up $14.9 billion (7%)
- Veteran's Affairs, up $3.2 billion (10%)
- EPA, up $1.0 billion (53%, not a typo)
Crutsinger could have addressed these or several other spending increases (or decreases, for that matter) in the Monthly Treasury Statement. Instead, we got nothing but misdirection. We certainly didn't get good journalism.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
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Comments
In other words ...
Submitted by another_old_veteran on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 4:38pm.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
“If you take a highly intelligent person and give them the best possible, elite education, then you will most likely wind up with an academic who is completely impervious to reality.” - Halton C. Arp
We need to cut expenses, like
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 4:44pm.
We need to cut expenses, like drastically.
but cutting taxes
Submitted by texusmc on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 5:35pm.
created a deficit!. If we raise taxes then we can spend more! yeah thats the ticket!.
puhleese! These jackwagons have no Idea on how to do any thing but spend spend spend.
I remember Cheney in the 90's "helping" to balance the budget by slashing the Military force to the BONE!. oh and look Gates is looking to do the same thing! Did not learn from the last time, you cut the amount of eyes pooring over the Intel and something gets missed, like say, flying planes into buildings!
they want to reduce it all? take the check book from their hands! why do we need 3 agencies doing the SAME job? 53% budget increase to the EPA? for what?!!??
if I ran a business like th Gov't runs I would be in jail...no scratch that, I d but UNDER the jail and Bernie Madoff would be walking free.
53% budget increase to the
Submitted by Reaver on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 6:32pm.
53% budget increase to the EPA? for what?!!??
That should be obvious they’re gearing up to regulate carbon dioxide, since cap and trade is dead in congress.
P.S. can I say dead? Or am I inciting violence again?
The problem is
Submitted by dr-go on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 5:40pm.
that every member of Congress automatically receives a degree in economics regardless of their ability to understand even basic monetary fundamentals. Spending will never be under control whilst economic ignorance, shown by the vast majority of Congress, continues unabated. So, why burden journalists such as Crutsinger with the task of educating any of the useful idiots on why excessive and increased spending is a highway to disaster?
Give the poor guy a break as he is only parroting what he hears from his version of the "intelligentsia". Yes, I am being sarcastic as any of you would after reading this mindless drivel from the "news media" day after day.