Pattycake

Senator Patty Murray (D, Washington) just submitted the Democrat’s first 10-year budget proposal in the last four years … about a week after Representative Paul Ryan (R, Wisconsin) offered the Republican’s perennial plan … and about a month before President Obama has promised to submit his administration’s fiscal guidelines.  This is topsy-turvy.  The Congress as per the Constitution requires that the President must offer his budget by the first Monday of February to be followed, traditionally, by the Senate and the House reconciliations (see: Redhaired Grrl ).  Needless to say, although Paul Ryan has created a ten-year path to zero deficits, Patty Murray does not even offer a feigned attempt to do so.  And, in his “leading by following” style of (non)-governing, Obama’s budget is expected to even outdo Patty Murray’s profligate taxing-and-spending proposal.

To be specific, Patty Murray’s budget includes about $1.5 trillion of additional tax increases and fire-hose spending that culminate in annual deficits well above $500 billion continuing well after the ten-year view of her document … resulting in a total increase in our national debt by over $7 trillion by 2023 (to $24.4 trillion).   Please explore the details of this budget proposal at: Powerline Blog.  But what is even more maniacally unrealistic is that Patty Murray is using economic (GDP) growth expectations that are obviously science fiction.  Here they are as calculated by a clever reader of the Powerline reference, Mike McNary, and offered therein:

Year    Expected GDP Growth
2014            3.81%
2015            5.92%
2016            6.58%
2017            6.20%
2018            4.93%
2019            4.52%
2020            4.40%
2021            4.32%
2022            4.26%
2023            4.23%

Such robust economic expansion is possible and has happened in the past (like under Ronald Reagan), but Obama’s record for GDP growth shows that a 2% annual increase is the best he has been able to produce … but this was before his recent actual and additional hoped-for tax increases and the impact of Obamacare on our nation’s economy.  So, dear reader, if Patty Murray (and President Obama) have their way with us, there is no possibility that this country can outrun fiscal ruin over the next ten years.

Afterward: It's even worse!  Senator Sessions exposes Democrat double-counting budget mendacity.  See: Breitbart Story