Chairman Murray’s Memo: More of the Same

Today, Senate Budget Chairman Patty Murray sent her caucus a memo on the country’s fiscal outlook. She details the “$3.3 trillion in deficit reduction put in place over the last few years;” a likely refrain in President Obama’s budget next week. However, Chairman Murray’s memo leaves much to be desired.

The first section of Murray’s memo highlights the various ways that the deficit has been reduced over the last several years by Congress and the President. The bulk of savings are from the discretionary spending caps put into place by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011. Another large share of deficit reduction came from $727 billion in tax increases over the last several years. All told, Murray counts $3.3 trillion in deficit reduction. This is an incredibly small step to tackling our $4 trillion budget.

But after detailing all of the great things this fiscal restraint is doing for the country, Chairman Murray completely turns course. Instead of detailing additional ways to cut spending and continue these marginal improvements, she starts a laundry list of needed government “investments”—spending programs. She calls for more spending on infrastructure, jobs programs, a minimum wage increase, and increased funding for research and development.

Also notably, she also does not include future sequester cuts in her numbers; an implicit acknowledgement that she does not plan to keep those promised cuts.

Chairman Murray’s memo also fails to acknowledge the impending fiscal crisis. According to the most recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, the country’s debt and deficit are stable for the next few years, but by 2017 they increase dramatically again. CBO expects the deficit to rise to 4% of GDP by the end of the decade. Even though, revenues as a percent of GDP will be close to historical levels, Chairman Murray calls for more tax hikes, ignoring the real driver of our fiscal issues: spending.

The refrain from many over the last year has been that the deficit is back under control, and that Congress should go back to wildly spending. Chairman Murray’s memo follows that path. It fails to acknowledge the need for fiscal restraint and sets the stage for next week’s release of the President’s budget.