Wait a second, that’s not the federal budget!
I thought you guys would enjoy a demolition job I’ve just completed on this Tea Party website, which pretends to be objective, and has managed to rise almost to the top of Google if you’re searching for information about the 2011 federal budget. What follows is from a comment I left over at Simple Politiks. He’s a nice, earnest guy; his is really the first political blog I’ve read since I got sick of the meaningless, vituperative debates that dominate in that part of the blogosphere.
Here’s the pie chart I’m discussing below (which totally says 2012, in yet another instance of amazing negligence):
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I’m guessing that your source for these numbers was http://www.usfederalbudget.us. It’s important to cite that source, because it’s not an especially objective or trustworthy one. It’s a site designed to promote Tea Party ideas and candidates. Not surprisingly, the pie chart on the site is compiled and labeled in extremely misleading ways.
I’m not saying this as a Tea Party detractor. I’m saying it as somebody who worked as a budget analyst for California’s Employment Development Department. I was personally responsible for tracking approximately $80 million in government spending annually. If I’d turned in a pie chart like that one, I would have been fired.
For example, Social Security is bundled under “Pensions.” Here’s why: people like Social Security, but it’s very expensive. People don’t like government employees, particularly retired ones, but those costs are actually quite low relative to everything else in the budget. By calling Social Security “pensions,” you disguise the popular kid as the nerdy loner.
Not counting military retirements, which aren’t supposed to be paid for by federal employees paying into a retirement fund, our net loss was only $22 billion — exactly what you’d expect to happen when government shrinks, the population ages, and there are fewer current employees. Many former employees, from periods of larger government, are still around.
It gets worse. The only listed offsets are these retirement contributions from federal employees. Huh? What happened to all the money taxpayers contribute to Social Security? Sure, it’s running into a deficit as baby boomers age, but the entire thing is not a deficit. In this graphic, Social Security is a pension when it’s a cost, and it’s magically not a pension when it’s a tax.
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As for the expenses listed under the loaded term “welfare”…where to even begin? For example, the biggest line item in the category “Social exclusion n.e.c.” (meaning Not Elsewhere Considered) is the Earned Income Tax Credit. How, exactly, is offering a tax deduction to people who find and maintain employment welfare? It shouldn’t be a line item anywhere unless you are going to get into every deduction and tax credit on the books, the majority of which benefit wealthy taxpayers and corporations. That’s why they’ve hidden it under the boring-looking “miscellaneous” category of Not Elsewhere Considered.
Also included under NEC is money spent on Adoption and Foster Care Assistance, totaling 8.3 billion dollars. This is certainly surprising, considering that a category called “Family and Children” is right there under “Welfare.” But it’s also not surprising, because unwanted pregnancies that don’t result in an abortion either lead to adoption or else to state care and, ultimately, foster care. You don’t want people clicking on “Family and Children,” and getting distracted by a line item that (if they’re pro-life, as many people visiting this site would be) they’re basically obligated to accept. You want that cost folded invisibly into “welfare,” so that “Family and Children” only shows aid given to the poor, conjuring images of welfare mothers and octomoms.
Another example: workers’ compensation. First off, this includes disability insurance, which isn’t correct. Disability insurance for someone with MS is not “workers’ compensation.” However, what I find most amazing is the 5.3 billion dollars included in this category that were paid to rail workers receiving a pension. It literally says “Pension Fund” right in the title. Why not add it to “Pensions”? Because that chunk already looked fine — let’s beef up Workers’ Compensation to make it look like another one of those bleeding-heart programs the nation cannot afford!
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I’ll stop there, because I think you get the point. This chart is not factual or analytical; it’s extremely unscrupulous propaganda. It is designed to agree superficially with the facts, so it hides its fudges within submenus — within submenus, and on and on, sometimes extending four layers deep.
So until next time, this is Joseph Kugelmass, saying…
I have to thank you for that demolition job because I would have continued to use that faulty source if you hadn’t taken the time to write your comment. I’ve switched out the source with a page from whitehouse.gov: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals
I’ve also switched out the data with the numbers provided by the new source.
One last thing, thank you for following my blog. Although I have a passion for politics, I am still relatively new to analyzing it. That’s why well-informed followers like yourself are so vital to my posts. I truly appreciate any contribution you make to my blog, whether it is fact checking or a simple opinion on the subject. Hope to see you around more often!
what world are you from?
The fact that you are responding to this post by quoting Travis Bickle, in and of itself, says everything.
You are off-base when you describe the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as merely a tax deduction: “How, exactly, is offering a tax deduction to people who find and maintain employment welfare?”
With the EITC, the government sends other people’s money to lower income recipients if the credit exceeds their tax liability; which it usually does. This is not a deduction, but a welfare check. In fact, Milton Friedman originated the idea in the 1960′s as a more efficient way to dispense welfare, cutting out all of the welfare middlemen and parasites. But it was not supposed to be an add-on. It was meant to replace the whole welfare system which is a black hole without significant effectiveness.
Babwa–
You are off-base when you describe the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as merely a tax deduction.
No, I’m not. It is a “refundable tax credit.” To impose the term “welfare” is confusing and reductive, especially when folded into a graphic (such as that pie chart). It could never replace “the whole welfare system,” since it does not address the needs of the disabled, the elderly, or the unemployed, nor does it redress child poverty. If Milton Friedman thought the EITC was all we needed to do for the poor, he must have felt the need to prove his incredible incompetence once more.
LOL..your my new hero. Excellent thought process with the ability to articulate it. Impressed.
Your personal post, “Wait a second, thats not the federal budget!
| The Kugelmass Episodes” was in fact worth writing a comment here!
Really wanted to point out you really did a tremendous job.
Thanks a lot ,Joyce