Cut baseline budgeting as part of fiscal cliff negotiations?

Daniel Horowitz:
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Let’s do some rudimentary math. The last farm bill, which was enacted in 2008, authorized $604 billion in spending. The current House bill proposed by Lucas (HR 6083) authorizes $957 billion in spending extrapolated over 10 years. Yet, this 58% increase is considered a cut in ‘Washington speak’ because the phony CBO baseline, which locks in Obama’s food stamp spending, projects $992 billion in spending. Hence, passage of the farm bill, which locks in the record food stamp spending and creates new farm welfare programs, will be scored as a spending cut – to the extent that it can be used for the spending cut side of the ‘grand bargain.’
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Getting rid of baseline budgeting would at least show some seriousness in dealing with Washington's spending problem.  It looks like neither party is that serious.

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