Rush Limbaugh: “If There Were A Budget Freeze ... In The World Of Reality, It Would Be Good”

Limbaugh Advocates For A “Budget Freeze,” Which He Says Would Be Scored In Washington As A $9.5 Trillion Cut. From the July 27 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Program:

LIMBAUGH: Put yourself in a situation where you're going to go buy a new car. You've looked at your budget, and you have decided that you can afford the monthly payment on a $40,000 car. So now you go to the showrooms, or you go to the Internet, or you go wherever you look to buy a car. And you find a car you really love for $70,000 that the dealer tells you is on sale, that you can get it for 60. So you and the family discuss it, and if you're like Washington, what you do is you tell yourself “you know what, let's get that 60 -- that 70,000 car that only costs 60, and we will save ourselves $10,000.”

But you haven't. You have spent 20,000 more than you originally allocated. You originally said “I'm going to go buy a $40,000 car,” then you found one you really liked for 70, on sale for 60. You plopped down the 60, which is 20 more than you wanted to spend, and tell yourself you saved 10. That's how it works. That's baseline budgeting. That is how a cut or a saving is actually an increase.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: If the Boehner plan were a simple freeze, we're not going to spend another dime next year beyond what we spent this year, it would equal a nine-and-a-half trillion dollar cut because the baseline in our budget obviously includes nine-and-a-half trillion dollars of new spending, minimum over the next 10 years. So this is how when you hear a proposal reacted to by saying “that's a draconian cut, look at what they are doing to school lunch programs.” Nothing is ever cut. Folks, you don't need me to tell you.

We have doubled the debt limit in five years. In 2006, the debt limit was 8.2 trillion. After the razzmatazz that we're going through now is finished and done with, it will be effectively 16 trillion. We're at 14.3 now and they're going to bump it up by $2 trillion. At some point in the next two years it's going to get there. Of course, the porkulus they're not budgeting for porkulus but the -- per se, but the money that porkulus cost is automatically included in next year's budget. It could be for widgets. Whatever they spend it on is not known.

It's just -- this is why it was so crucial for Obama to get that passed and Obamacare too because it ups the baseline and therefore the automatic increases are off the charts, and therefore it's impossible to actually cut and reduce anything. So whatever plan Boehner had to go back to the drawing board with, or anybody, I don't care Reid, you name it. There's not one penny being cut from anything. The way it's being scored. Now, if there were a budget freeze and if we didn't spend another dime, in the world of reality, it would be good. But Washington is not reality and Washington budgeting is unlike any other -- you think Enron was bad? The way Washington does things is criminal. Those people -- we don't have enough jails to put everybody in. So the best illustration yet -- we freeze spending. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 7/27/11]

But Experts Say That Limbaugh's Call To “Freeze Spending” Would Lead To “Enormous Reductions” In Programs

Budget Experts At CBPP: “Limbaugh's Assertion ... Represents A Misunderstanding Of Federal Budgeting.” In an email about Limbaugh's claims on baseline budgeting, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities' budget experts Richard Kogan and Kathy Ruffing stated:

Limbaugh's assertion that “the baseline in our budget obviously includes $9.5 trillion of new spending, minimum over the next 10 years” represents a misunderstanding of federal budgeting. There's nothing “new” about the spending that he describes -- rather, it's a continuation of what the government already does.

In CBO's March 2011 baseline, total outlays over the ten-year period from 2012-2021 are $45.8 trillion. If annual outlays throughout that period instead stayed at 2011's level ($3.6 trillion), they would sum to $36.3 trillion over the ten years -- a difference of $9.5 trillion. That's the apparent basis of Limbaugh's figure. [Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, email to Media Matters, 7/28/11]

• Kogan Previously Worked At The White House Office Of Management And Budget And Served As The U.S. House Budget Committee's Director Of Budget Policy. [Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, accessed 7/28/11]
• Ruffing Previously Worked For The Congressional Budget Office For 25 Years. [Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, accessed 7/28/11]

CBPP Budget Experts: Limbaugh's Math Fails To Take Into Account “Inflation,” “Demographic Change,” And “Rising Interest Costs.” From Kogan and Ruffing's email:

Limbaugh implies that there would be nothing draconian about freezing spending at 2011's dollar level. (“Nothing is ever cut! Folks, you don't need me to tell you.”) But in fact, that would represent a massive reduction in the services provided by government to a growing population. CBO's baseline -- which follows a methodology prescribed by law -- shows rising outlays for several reasons:

• Inflation. Even at today's subdued rates of 2 to 3 percent a year, inflation eats away at the purchasing power of a federal dollar. Over the 2011-2012 period, failing to adjust for overall inflation would cut real spending by over one-fifth. (And inflation is higher in health care, a major area of federal spending.) The keen attention paid by seniors' organizations to proposals that would alter Social Security's cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) make very clear that people perceive a failure to keep up with inflation as a benefit cut.

• Demographic change. The U.S. population is aging. The Social Security Administration projects that the population 65 and older will grow by more than 35 percent between 2010 and 2020, and nearly 100 percent by 2040. There is no way to keep Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid enrollments from rising short of drastically restricting eligibility (for example, by jacking up the retirement age) -- which citizens, correctly, perceive as a benefit cut.

• Rising interest costs. The federal debt continues to grow, and interest rates will rise from today's rock-bottom levels. Paying interest on our debt is a fundamental obligation of government, and its amount is not something that policymakers can directly control. [Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, email to Media Matters, 7/28/11]

CBPP Budget Experts: Limbaugh's Logic Assumes That “He Could Freeze Social Security Spending By Requiring That No New Person Could Retire On Social Security Until A Current Beneficiary Dies.” From Kogan and Ruffing's email:

To illustrate Limbaugh's logic, he could freeze Social Security spending by requiring that no new person could retire on Social Security until a current beneficiary dies. Maybe he would set up waiting lists. You wouldn't get the Social Security benefits you had earned; you'd get the amount that the previous retiree was getting. And you'd never get a cost-of-living adjustment.

It's true that CBO would “score” a plan to permanently freeze future federal spending at 2011's dollar level as saving $9.5 trillion over ten years, but the policies required to achieve that would mean enormous reductions in every federal program. [Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, email to Media Matters, 7/28/11]