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Jewish World Review March 10, 2011 4 Adar II, 5771 Four pinocchios for the American public on the budget By Glenn Kessler
The American public appears to be clamoring for a discussion about the size and scope of the federal government. But how can Washington have a serious debate when most Americans are ignorant of what is in the budget? Yet another depressing survey was released that attests to the failure of most Americans to understand the basics of the federal budget -- and why there is a soaring budget deficit. Respected Republican pollsters Ed Goeas and Nicholas Thompson reported that 63 percent of those surveyed believe the federal government spends more on defense and foreign aid than it does on Medicare and Social Security. (That's wrong.) A similar majority believes that problems with the federal budget can be fixed by just eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse" -- and that 42 percent of every federal dollar is wasted. "Voters do not casually agree with these untruths -- at least 40 percent strongly agree," the pollsters said. This survey is broadly reflected by other polls, recently collected by analyst Bruce Bartlett. Among the gems he uncovered:
The Facts
Take a good hard look at the chart above. Or go to this nifty interactive web page on washingtonpost.com, which allows you to see what has happened to the budget over the last three decades. Notice that foreign aid is so small in the above chart that it doesn't even merit a mention. While it's about 1 percent of the overall budget, it amounts to less than 3 percent of the dollars allocated year after year by Congress, known as the discretionary budget. Perhaps some people lump together foreign aid with military spending, since a lot of military dollars go to wars overseas. Certainly the military is a big part of the budget -- about 25 percent -- but that is not foreign aid. In fact, compared to other wealthy countries, the United States is an absolute miser on foreign aid. The best way to compare budgets is by looking at how much is spent as a percentage of the country's overall economy, or gross domestic product. This 2008 list shows the United States as last among 22 countries, with 0.19 percent of GDP. The United Nations has set a target contribution rate of 0.7 percent, and the average country contribution was 0.45 percent. Some countries come close to donating 1 percent of GDP in foreign aid. Nevertheless, House Republicans have targeted foreign aid for major cuts this year, with lawmakers even eliminating all funding for the U.S. Institute of Peace, which helps resolve bloody conflicts overseas. (One analyst has noted that the USIP's entire annual budget is equal to the cost of deploying one infantry platoon -- that's about 30 to 40 people -- to Afghanistan for a year.) To some extent, politicians are to blame for some of the public confusion. The debate in recent weeks has focused on cuts in the discretionary part of the budget -- which is only about one-third of the government's $3.7 trillion budget -- and the tiny sliver of spending on foreign aid was a big part of that debate. For his part, President Obama, in his 2012 budget, highlighted cuts to relatively minor programs and avoided making proposals for reining in the cost of the big-ticket spending programs. Look again at the chart. Much of the budget -- more than 40 percent -- is spent on social insurance, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The interactive graphic shows that spending in those programs have soared in the last 30 years (while foreign aid has essentially stayed flat). Projections show the spending in those programs will only increase, especially as more of the baby boom generation heads into retirement. That's where the money is. Politicians should be honest about the real sacrifices that will be needed, by all Americans, to deal with the looming sacrifices necessary to bring down budget deficits. Cutting development aid in Africa really will not make much of a difference. Interestingly, a recent study by the University of Maryland found that when people were actually given the facts about the budget, they could seriously understand and make choices about how to deal with the deficit. In fact, the results upended some of the usual media stereotypes, with Democrats cutting spending more than Republicans -- and members of both parties agreeing to raise taxes. (Even after the survey, though, the respondents continued to have a misperception of foreign aid, with the median response being that it was about 15 percent of the budget and that it should be about 5 percent -- still much larger than the actual percentage). The Pinocchio Test No matter what rhetoric politicians use about the budget, people need to find out the facts in order to understand the costs, the trade-offs and the challenges ahead. Every year, when the president releases his budget, newspapers print pie charts showing how the money is spent. The budget is publicly available on the Web. There should be little excuse for not knowing the basic facts about how the U.S. government spends taxpayers' money. Four Pinocchios
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An award-winning journalism career spanning nearly three decades, Glenn Kessler has covered foreign policy, economic policy, the White House, Congress, politics, airline safety and Wall Street. He was The Washington Post's chief State Department reporter for nine years, traveling around the world with three different Secretaries of State. Before that, he covered tax and budget policy for The Washington Post and also served as the newspaper's national business editor. Kessler has long specialized in digging beyond the conventional wisdom, such as when he earned a "laurel" from the Columbia Journalism Review
• 03/09/11: Obama and the White House's ‘halfway’ fixation with the budget • 03/08/11: Foreign policy braggadocio on Libya and AIDS • 03/07/11: Democrats keep misleading on claimed budget ‘cuts’ • 03/01/11: Mike Huckabee is on to something here, but jumped the gun
• 02/25/11: Harry Reid's illusory $41 billion in budget cuts
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