FROM ONE NEWS NOW/AFA

Washington still splurging


Chris Woodward - OneNewsNow - 10/15/2010 3:55:00 AMA new report provides further proof that it is necessary to read between the lines when it comes to Congress and spending.

The Congressional Budget Office released its preliminary tallies for the fiscal year 2010 to show another big year of spending in Washington, which dished out about $3.45 trillion -- a slight decrease from the $3.52 trillion spent in 2009. But Steve Keen with The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, explains that the decrease is still no reason to celebrate.

"The only reason that spending slightly declined is that three one-time events happened," he reports. "Specifically, payments back from the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) plan [gave] the federal government some additional revenues. The payments to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were a bit lower than expected. Also, deposit insurance payments fell by $55 billion."

But Keen thinks that excluding those three aspects from the figures would show that federal spending actually rose by almost nine percent from 2009 and by 21 percent from 2008. Much of those dollars went to a few projects, including Social Security, which got an extra $89 billion, and Medicare and Medicaid, which got an additional $132 billion combined. Also, unemployment spending went up $113 billion, and defense spending received an extra $72 billion.