Misleading
Political Terms: A Primer
Certain terms or words that are commonly
used by politicians and bureaucrats are now so ubiquitous that they have become
buzzwords - a sort of shorthand-speak that’s intended to convey a particular
meaning in political discourse and legislation but are invariably misunderstood
by the public. That, of course, is the idea; to keep people unaware of what the
politicians and bureaucrats are actually doing.
These expressions frequently appear in
media coverage, editorials, opinion pieces and articles, and are often used by
politicians or other “public servants.” However, since they usually don’t mean
what they appear to say or what we may think they say, I thought I would offer my
own explanations of some of those that are most often heard in today’s
political discourse, along with a few simple recommendations, which we all know
will not be adopted or, for that matter, even be acknowledged.
Balanced Budget
Most everyone seems to think this means
that budgeted income matches projected outgo, ergo,
the budget balances. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works in the beltway or,
for that matter, on any level of government organizations. Even when budgets
are prepared that appear to be balance, many of them really can’t, or probably
ever will be. One reason is that a number of extremely large obligations are
usually not included on the federal government’s books or factored into the
financial reports of most other jurisdictions, that is, state, county and city.
These are generally referred to as “unfunded”
liabilities (debt), which simply means that the money to pay them has not been
set aside in a separate fund (read bank or investment account), so the cash
will be available when they come due. A good example of this is the pension
obligations for government employees. If these commitments were included, most
government financial statements would not balance properly, with the result
that many such entities would be technically insolvent. Many major corporations
have the same problem.
RECOMMENDATION: require that all “unfunded” debt be included in the accounting for and
financial presentations of all government entities, so the public can readily
see what their true financial condition is.
Budget Cut
There’s always a lot of political
posturing about various cuts in the budget that one side or the other, usually
Republicans, want to impose. However, this is pure sleight-of-hand, because
they are not real cuts at all, and it seems that the public are the only people
who don’t know it. This gets a little complicated but the budget process does not
work the way most people generally think.
The Federal government uses a method of
budgeting that does not construct the numbers from the bottom up to determine
how much should be spent, which is called “zero based budgeting.” Instead, the
budget for each new fiscal year starts with the expenditures that were adopted
for the previous year, and these are automatically increased by a certain
percentage to arrive at the amount needed for the next year. For example, say a
one billion dollar budget for some department in the current year is to be
increased by 7% for the next year, which would simply raise it to one billion-seventy-million
dollars.
Here’s the tricky part: If the proposed
increase is reduced to, say 5%, it is considered a cut. In other words, if the
budget for the prior year is only increased by $50 million instead of $70
million, that’s called a cut, even though no one may be advocating an actual
reduction in the total amount of expenditures from the prior year. All hell
breaks loose in the political posturing that ensues, because someone is
advocating a CUT. So, a cut is not actually a cut at all, but politicians are
able to call it one so people will think anyone who favors something less than
the proposed automatic increase in a particular budget, say for school lunches
or Social Security, is a heartless, unfeeling, evil
scrooge. Neat trick, huh?
RECOMMENDATION: Pass “Truth in
Budgeting” laws that require all government budgets to be developed using only
the “zero base” method.
Out-Year
Here’s another way budget numbers are
finessed by clever politicians, especially at the federal level. “Out-year”
refers to subsequent years after the budget for a particular year is adopted.
The budget for several years is projected to balance in the future, after the
politicians responsible for developing it are no longer in office, such as the
President or members of Congress who are involved in the process and vote on
the legislation. In other words, the budget doesn’t balance now, but it will
later, when they’re no longer around, so they can’t be held accountable if it
doesn’t balance at that time. This is simple sleight of hand. It doesn’t
balance now but it will later. “Trust us,” they say. It will all work out in
the end.
RECOMMENDATION: Discontinue this practice.
Make it illegal, if possible, which of course is wishful thinking.
Debt Limit
This one is really absurd. This term
usually refers to the amount of money the Federal government is authorized to
spend. The fact that there is, or may be, a limit to the amount of money
politicians can spend is a good thing, right? Yes, but any limit is only good
so long as it is not easily changed, otherwise it’s not really a limit, is it?
When our fearless leaders run up against
the debt limit, what can they do? Either cut something or raise the limit, of
course. And, what invariably happens? They always raise it. Whenever the debt
ceiling is breached, Congress, in its infinite wisdom, simply passes a bill to
increase it, which the President dutifully signs. Nothing could be easier, and
nothing could be phonier that the “debt limit.” Wouldn’t it be great if we
could all do that?
RECOMMENDATION: Stop spending money. That
is, cut expenditures when the “Debt Limit” is reached.
There Ought To Be A Law
Abe Lincoln’s famous admonition, “You
can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the
time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time,” never had greater
meaning than it does today. Unfortunately, there are not yet enough people who
see through the political sleight of hand that our legislators use to mislead
the public today to be able to put a stop to these practices.
In general, the obvious intent of our
politicians is to label their actions and legislation in ways that the public
does not understand, to divert opposition and confuse people so they don’t
actually realize what the consequences of their legislative actions actually
are. Makes one wonder if they don’t go to work every day and think, “Let’s see
how we can fool them (the public) today.”
There ought to be a law that requires
truth in legislation and politics. I know that’s a silly idea but it’s fun to think about, and it’s just my opinion.
© 2007 Harris R. Sherline,
All Rights Reserved