Five jaw-dropping gimmicks in President Obama's budget

◼ President Obama's budget released Tuesday claims to reduce deficits by trillions of dollars, but a closer look at the details reveals that the deficit reduction is dependent on a number of gimmicks. - Philip Klein/Washington Examiner @philipklein

For example...Obama's budget isn't the most transparent document. Those wanting to get a breakdown of the tax increases (without the benefit of my awesome recent post on the subject), would have to go line-by-line through a 24-page table, in which tax and fee increases are mixed in with changes to Medicare and other mandatory spending. Starting on page 195, and continuing for several pages, there's a long list of tax increases on businesses totaling $250 billion, described as a “reserve for long-run revenue-neutral business tax reform.”

Then, on the bottom of page 200, there’s a footnote, which reads: “Because the Administration believes that these proposals should be enacted in the context of comprehensive business tax reform, the amounts are not reflected in the budget estimates of receipts and are not counted toward meeting the Administration’s deficit reduction goals. The budget estimates do include $150 billion in temporary revenues that would be generated by the transition to a reformed business tax system, shown as part of the proposal to reauthorize surface transportation above.”

Wait, what?