Talking Shop Blog

The Problem with Baseline Budgeting

The Congressional Budget Office projects a $1.1 trillion federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2012 if current laws remain unchanged. And the national debt stands at $15.3 trillion and counting.

Most everyone agrees our country has a debt and deficit problem. And reasonable people have differing views on how to address the problem.

President Obama sent his 2013 budget plan to Congress today. The House passed their 2012 budget plan last April, and they’ll be doing the same for 2013 sometime this spring.

The Senate hasn’t passed a budget plan in over a 1,000 days and counting.

All of the plans have one thing in common – they only slow the increase in spending. It’s based on the concept of “baseline budgeting.”

Yesterday I heard a commentator explain the problem in a way that most of us can understand.

Say you went on a diet and your plan was to only gain 15 pounds over the next 12 months. If you only gained 10 pounds, you actually reduced your weight by 5 pounds.

That’s how baseline budgeting works.

To learn more about baseline budgeting check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseline_(budgeting)

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Posted by Jerry Lopatka on February 13, 2012, 10:05 am

Dugan & Lopatka, CPAs, PC   104 E. Roosevelt Rd., Wheaton, Illinois 60187    Phone: (630) 665-4440    Fax: (630) 665-5030