The Tenor Of The Disagreement Over The Budget Deal Growing Louder.

David Stockman: Budget Agreement 'a Joke and Betrayal'

Thursday, 12 Dec 2013 08:03 AM

By Dan Weil

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Former White House budget director David Stockman has harsh criticism for the budget agreement reached by congressional Democrats and Republicans Tuesday, saying it does nothing to address our debt problem.

"It's a joke and betrayal," he told CNBC. "It's the final surrender of the House Republican leadership to beltway politics and to kicking the can and ignoring this budget monster that's hurtling down the road. They're busting the caps, and it's totally unnecessary."

Stockman doesn't like the $63 billion of spending added for the next two years with an extension of a Medicare spending cut through 2022 and 2023 to offset the move.



"They're going to pretend to save it in '22 and '23, way, way down the road," Stockman argued. "They've not only kicked the can down the road, but kicked it into low-earth orbit."

Defense spending was set to total $600 billion under the automatic spending cuts (sequester), before the congressional agreement, he noted. "We can easily live with that. Prior to the Bush wars, we had $400 billion in defense spending in today's real dollars — 50 percent more, and they can't live with it?"

Domestic spending was slated for $580 billion before the congressional accord. "Bill Clinton left with $400 billion in today's dollars. . . . There's plenty of room, but they're unwilling to make the tough choices," Stockman added.

"I understand Democrats doing that. The only hope of getting our fiscal situation under control is if the House Republicans stand up, and they've totally capitulated."

The way the political calendar works, the debt burden won't see any major shrinkage before 2018 or 2019, he asserted.

Tuesday's budget agreement would run through Sept. 30, 2015. Then comes the presidential election. "There's not a chance anything will be done about the fiscal equation, which is festering, until 2017," Stockman said.

"And if you get around to addressing it, you can't have an impact until 2018 or 2019. Now, who thinks we can wait that long? We have $17 trillion of debt now. Just by the momentum built in, it will be $25 trillion after the next presidential election."

But many Republicans support the budget accord. "I believe it'll get a majority of the majority" of House Republicans and a hefty total of Democratic votes, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said after a Capitol Hill briefing, Bloomberg reported.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, took out after conservative groups that are fighting the deal. "They're using our members, and they're using the American people for their own goals, this is ridiculous," he said, according to Bloomberg. "If you're for more deficit reduction, you're for this agreement."



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