CFA & ATR: Taxpayers Can't Lose the Weight on Obama's Spending Diet

Thursday, June 3, 2010 4:52 PM

Today, ATR and CFA called out the President's nonchalant attitude on federal spending , most recently witnessed in his speech in Pittsburg delivered yesterday. President Obama, who has used the FY 2010 appropriations bills to increase non-defense, discretionary spending 12 percent in the past year, continues to masquerade as a fiscal watchdog by promoting his plan to "freeze" spending for three years, starting in 2011.

While the President continues to sell this plan as sound fiscal policy, he won’t even begin “freezing” spending until 2011 after he’s had his fill exploding federal spending.  Even then, his proposal leaves a majority of federal spending, over 85 percent, off the table for rescission. A proposed “freeze” ignores that after the spending binge of this Congress that was supported by the White House, the only path to true fiscal restraint lies in spending cuts, and large ones at that.

“This President continues to favor hyperbole over actual spending cuts,” said President of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist. “President Obama mentioned Pay-As-You-Go in his speech, but forgot to include that Congress deems its spending to be “emergency” so they don’t have to comply with this rule. He also claims his Fiscal Commission will pave the road for less spending – it won’t. Because the Commission has professed “everything is on the table” it will ultimately propose higher taxes to satiate Congress’s appetite for excessive spending. Taxpayers are not fooled by this shell game – Obama’s pledge to cut more than he spent is another one of the President’s many broken campaign promises.

For a pdf of our press release, click here.

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