By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Federal employee unions and their allies on Capitol Hill are drawing a line in the sand against potential efforts to solve the "fiscal cliff" crisis on the backs of the federal workforce, saying the civil service already has done its part.
Washington is famous for budget trickery, and the practice of base-line budgeting is one of its most cynical traditions. Base-line budgeting makes an increase in funding appear as a cut. For example, according to Dan Mitchell at the Cato Institute, "The 'cuts' in the [debt ceiling] deal are only cuts from the [Congressional Budget Office's] 'baseline,' which is a Washington construct of ever-rising spending. And even these 'cuts' from the baseline include $156 billion of interest savings, which are imaginary because the underlying cuts are imaginary." An egregious example of such base-line budgeting is the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Universal Service Fund (USF).
One week after he called on lawmakers to close tax-code loopholes that benefit specific industries, President Obama proposed one of his own — a tax break aimed at spurring the development of energy-efficient commercial buildings.
Where is the historical evidence to show that big increases in government spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) lead to faster economic growth and more job creation? Answer: There isn't any.
"All Obama is doing is swapping one set of loopholes for another," said Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. "This is why our tax code is a 70,000-page monstrosity. Politicians just can't resist doing this kind of stuff."
