Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., challenged Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Jeffrey Zients to resign this morning, unless he could substantiate his claim that President Obama’s budget does not increase spending.
“Do you propose to spend more money over the next ten years than what the Budget Control Act and current law would cause us to spend?” Sessions asked.
“I think what we have is a much more honest baseline. A baseline that has SGR, AMT not patched year after year but extends through the period,” Zients answered.
This is just plain false. Obama’s budget only fixes the SGR (aka the “doc fix”) for two years. After that Congress would be forced right back into the “patched year after year” situation Zients falsely claims Obama’s budget solves.
After much more equivocation and evasiveness from Zients, Sessions asked: “If you are incorrect in saying that you do not increase spending more than current law, would you consider resigning your office?”
Zients refused to answer that question too.
Last month, the CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook showed federal spending would total $44.251 trillion through 2022. Obama’s budget released yesterday shows $46.959 trillion in spending through 2022. That is a $2.7 trillion spending increase. For 2012 alone, Obama’s budget increases spending by $195 billion.
Obama’s budget directors have a well established history of providing false testimony to the United States Senate. Last year, then-OMB Director Jack Lew told the committee that Obama’s budget “will not be adding more to the national debt.” PolitiFact rated that statement false.
After Sessions challenged Zients to resign, Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., canceled the second round of questioning.
