Cut, Cap and Bullshit, Part 2

Yesterday, I lamented that Mitt Romney and the Republican Party are attempting to make a massive change to the role of government, their Cut, Cap and Balance plan, without informing voters of the implications of that change. Romney's website includes a section on spending. It's quite a document, to say the least, and at least gives us some hints as to the likely damage to the nation that would be done by a President Romney. Let's go through it item by item; this will take a few days:

As president, Mitt’s goal will be to bring federal spending below 20 percent of GDP by the end of his first term. Reduced from 24.3 percent last year; in line with the historical trend between 18 and 20 percent.

You know who never had a year with federal spending below 20% of GDP, per the OMB (.xls)? Ronald Reagan. Neither did Reagan's successor, George Bush. The best either did was 21.2%, in 1989.

Close to the tax revenue generated by the economy when healthy.

That's actually true, per the Excel/.xls link above. Way to go, Mitt!

Requires spending cuts of approximately $500 billion per year in 2016 assuming robust economic recovery with 4% annual growth, and reversal of irresponsible Obama-era defense cuts

The $500 billion number is pretty accurate, based on the OMB .xls data above. The 4% annual growth number is optimistic for the next few years, given that in the past 11 years we have only just barely touched 4% briefly in 2004.

Romney intends to cut $500 billion without touching the ridiculously-bloated military budget. We're in such terrible financial straits that we have to make all the draconian cuts that we'll discuss, but we MUST continue to spend 450% more than our nearest competitor, apparently.

Tomorrow, we'll look at Romney's plan to devastate Medicaid and Medicare, which millions of Americans depend on for their health. But we can't touch even one penny of the military budget!