Spencer Cox: “I am delighted to be here in support of abolishing the practice of baseline budgeting, which is the accounting gimmick…”

“I am delighted to be here in support of abolishing the practice of baseline budgeting, which is the accounting gimmick by which for so many years Congress has called a spending increase a cut. This really has gone on just last year. Just this past year Republicans proposed reforming the State Department, a regular target of reform. Under this reform proposal, actual spending on State Department functions would have increased by $25 million year to year, but the opponents of the reform cried "foul." They said, "You are spending less money, you are slashing the budget of the State Department by $77 million." One person's increase is another person's cut. There is no common denominator. How does this work? Let me demystify it. We just finished New Year's Day and a lot of people spent time in front of their television sets eating take-out pizza. Let us imagine last year on New Year's Day you ate five pieces of pizza. This year, it was so much fun last year, you decided to eat 10 pieces of pizza. Your friends told you that would be truly piggish, you ought to cut back, so you settle on seven. Under baseline budgeting you can claim to have slashed your pizza consumption by 30 percent because you are only having 7 pieces instead of the 10 that you want. What we are going to say in this reform is, you are increasing your pizza consumption 40 percent. Be honest with yourself. You are having seven this year instead of the five you had last year.”