Dems Flunk Budget
by Brian Riedl
Issue 96 - November 21, 2007

The Democratic congressional majority promised fiscal restraint, adherence to pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules, and reform of pork projects. They have broken all of these promises.

• Congress has thus far voted to raise taxes by $98 billion over the next decade (while proposing much more) and enacted a budget resolution that would raise taxes overall by approximately $2.7 trillion over ten years.
• Despite their PAYGO pledge, the $98 billion in new taxes does not fully offset the $179 billion in new entitlement spending passed by Congress with the help of gimmicks.
• Discretionary spending is set to exceed President Bush's budget request by $275 billion over 10 years. Despite pledging to halve the number of earmarks to 6,746, Congress has included 11,351 in the spending bills. They also watered down promised earmark ethics reforms.
• The Blue Dog Democrats pledged to work for deficit reduction but have voted almost unanimously to raise taxes, increase spending, and expand the budget deficit.

For the full study you may click on http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/bg2081.cfm (then click the pdf icon for the printable version with charts).

Brian Riedl is Grover M. Hermann Fellow for Federal Budgetary Affairs at The Heritage Foundation.