You Don't Rein in Out-of-Control Spending by Increasing It - Seems obvious, no?

David Boaz of Cato:  It’s being reported that in his 2013 budget President Obama will propose to increase spending now and reduce the deficit some day.  Isn’t that what every budget promises these days? As I noted last summer during the debt ceiling fight at the Britannica Blog, fiscal conservatives should be very skeptical of plans and proposals that  promise to cut spending some day—not this year, not next year, but swear to God some time in the next ten years:

As the White Queen said to Alice, “Jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day.” Cuts tomorrow and cuts in the out-years—but never cuts today.

We’ve become so used to these unfathomable levels of deficits and debt—and to the once-rare concept of trillions of dollars—that we forget how new all this debt is. In 1981, after 190 years of federal spending, the national debt was “only” $1 trillion. Now, just 30 years later, it’s past $15 trillion.