War of the Words- When we lose the language, we lose the war.

Dave Durand- Wednesday Contributor

Cut  - (for budgeting purpose)

Reality: (verb) to lower, reduce, diminish, or curtail

Government: (verb) to lessen the rate of growth

For me, a budget cut means that I spend less this month than I did the last. The first time my wife and I did a written budget, we were surprised to see how much money we were actually spending on various items. So we found that we were easily able to cut expenditures in order to reach our financial goals.

For example, before we started budgeting monthly, we were spending $500 dollars (hypothetically) on fun items like eating at restaurants, or going out for drinks with friends. When planning our budget, we decided to limit ourselves to $200 on these items. This equals a $300 budget cut. That is reality.

As far as government is concerned, a cut means that our politicians spend less on the embedded increases in the budget. Unfortunately for small government types like me, almost all government programs are created with an automatic budget increase from year to year - somewhere in the neighborhood of 3% to 10%. Reductions in the percentage of growth are then decried as “cuts”. This is known as Baseline Budgeting.

Let’s use Baseline Budgeting for my personal example. Remember that my wife and I were spending $500 dollars on fun items like eating at restaurants, 

or going out for drinks with friends. 

However, we would really love to start spending $1,000 each month because we want to be fat alcoholics. 

But, after we looked at our pay check, we realize that we can only afford to spend for $700.(Hey, it’s still a party right?)

So at the end of the day, we were spending $500, but now will spend $700 instead of $1000. If my wife or I were politicians, this would still equal a $300 budget cut. That is obviously a lie. We actually spent $200 more than we used to.

In real terms, the federal budget is 3.8 Trillion dollars for budget year 2011. Now let’s suppose that for budget year 2012, there is a 10% planned increased for all programs. Let’s also say Republicans grow a backbone and miraculously sustain a budget freeze where we plan to spend 3.8 Trillion once again. The media and the Democrats in Washington will scream bloody murder over 380 Billion dollars in “cuts” because the budget stayed at 3.8 Trillion instead of growing to 4.18 Trillion. Only in government can spending exactly the same amount of money be considered a cut.

Cutting government is going to be painful even with an honest debate, and as I just demonstrated, we are far away from that. This is the uphill battle for those who want to limit government to its Constitutional framework. Every government check has a constituency waiting to cash it, and they will vehemently oppose any plan to reduce or take it away.