The New Media Journal | Despite Obama's Campaign Vow, Federal Budget Up 4%

The New Media Journal | Despite Obama's Campaign Vow, Federal Budget Up 4%: "Spending on discretionary items, or those under White House and congressional control, is expected to run about 4 percent higher than last year, well above the rate of inflation. And a big chunk of the budget was approved three months past due.

'For all the talk about the need to get spending under control, I don't see any of that,' said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a budget watchdog group.

Earlier this year, President Barack Obama unveiled a $3.6 trillion budget blueprint and pledged, 'No part of my budget will be free from scrutiny or untouched by reform.'

Congress then split his requests into a dozen bills, which were supposed to be completed by Oct. 1, the start of the 2010 fiscal year. The process was not completed until this month-nearly one quarter into the fiscal year -- as Congress previously approved stopgap measures to keep the government running.

As now approved, Pentagon spending will rise 0.7 percent this fiscal year -- though Obama is expected to seek more money for the Afghanistan war early next year -- while domestic spending should rise 8.2 percent, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a budget watchdog group.

When those budgets are combined, spending will grow about 4.1 percent -- less than the 7.5 percent average of the past 10 years, but still well above the current 1 to 2 percent rate of inflation.

And the figures do not include 'entitlements,' such as Medicare and Social Security, whose payments are fixed by law and are expected to grow about 3 percent this year. Nor do the numbers include most of the February economic stimulus or emergency spending for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Those figures are not included because budget experts prefer to compare year-to-year spending that's within Congress' control. And they generally don't like the way Congress has handled the budget.

'It's ridiculous they can't get a budget passed through the normal process. They're trying to do everything at the last minute,' said Marc Goldwein, policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Democratic leaders attribute the budget delay to several factors. Harsh economic times require more spending and result in less revenue, they say. And they point out that passing the $787 billion economic stimulus occupied much of early 2009, war funding dominated spring deliberations...

Republicans counter that there's no excuse for such delays, and for so little fiscal discipline.

'Millions of families across the country and small businesses are tightening their budgets,' said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). 'But the budgets of these federal agencies and of the federal government itself keeps expanding.'

The delays and the increased spending could prove a political liability for Democrats...

Analysts said the public is likely to remember what Obama said in March. 'The future demands that we operate in a different way than we have in the past,' he said, pledging that he would usher in 'a new era of responsibility and accountability that the American people have every right to expect and to demand.'"