Or, are they? Maybe what they’re really doing is telling you they’re cutting spending while all they’re really doing is decreasing the amount of the pre-determined increase in spending. Then, to compound the insult, they lie to you (read: us) about it. How many times have we heard a politician or bureaucrat seek sympathy from us over “budget cuts”? Reality is, nothing is being cut… in any sense that you or I would understand the concept in our daily lives would understand it.
Yet, who can really blame them for taking advantage? After all, how many people really know how government works? Not many, percentage-wise. I certainly don’t claim to be a guru, but I have done a bit of reading on the subject and have become very skeptical when it comes to government budgeting… especially baseline budgeting, which has been our federal standard for roughly four decades now.
As this article points out, baseline budgeting is essentially a scheme that serves to perpetuate and increase the government bureaucracy.
“Baseline budgeting” is one of those Washington terms that sounds very dry and boring. In reality, baseline budgeting is one of the most sinister ways that politicians claim to cut spending when they are actually increasing spending.
Granted, not everything in government should be run like a private business or a private household, but when it comes to budgeting it is not unreasonable at all to expect government departments and agencies to justify their projected needs rather than expand their spending to meet the money given.
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