From Laurie
"I saw this graph and thought it might interest John, as he could revise his belief that federal spending is out of control. Chart of the Day: A Taxpayer’s Guide to Skyrocketing Federal Spending"
Now remember that Laurie trusts Kevin Drum and Mother Jones, so what he says / shows is very important to her. Here is a similar chart from the CBO, and it is pretty well aligned with Kevin's. Though it clearly shows that spending is higher than revenues and planned to grow, even if we miraculously do not have a recession.
Now here are CBO charts of a longer term nature. I mean the charts above don't seem to show when the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds go broke.
So yes the federal government and we citizens do have a spending and/or revenue problem. Thoughts?
Here is a late addition for your consideration. Forbes The Federal Deficit: It's A Spending Problem It is a little dated and the spend trend line is a little flatter now, however in general it is still good information.
39 comments:
Remember: Every dollar we spend above the revenue we supply is money we are stealing from our kids...
- It will either need to be paid back by them...
- Or they will need to pay the on going interest payment...
- Or they will have fewer options if bad times come... (ie credit card maxxed)
So please keep demanding...
- Your lower taxes...
- Or additional handouts...
The generations before us for the most part controlled their spending and paid their bills... The Baby Boomers on seem much more self centered.
We fight too many wars, and we are getting too old. These are the things we are spending money on and if we want to spend less we should do something about both of those problems. Money doesn't spend itself.
--Hiram
Some more graphs and comment.
Hey, Democrats are the ones talking "paygo" rules. You need to talk to the clowns on your side.
Though I agree there is too much anger and power grabbing in this world, the US Military Spend is at historical lows.
Where as Entitlement Spending is at Historic Highs. Partially because people are getting older, but mostly because we choose to transfer more personal expenses on to the tax payers.
Now we can not stop people from getting older, and we can not force people to "learn, work, save, invest, buy insurance, etc". However we can decide that they should bear the consequences of their poor choices....
Instead of letting them avoid the consequences by having the tax payers carry their load.
Sean,
And when Obama was in the White House, it was the GOP stressing PAYGO Rules.
They are both to blame...
And technically it is the fault of greedy modern Americans...
We want our taxes low and our services high...
"Where as Entitlement Spending is at Historic Highs. Partially because people are getting older, but mostly because we choose to transfer more personal expenses on to the tax payers."
No, actually, it's mostly because people are getting older.
"And when Obama was in the White House, it was the GOP stressing PAYGO Rules."
Barack Obama had 60 votes in the Senate and he still passed the ACA fully paid for. So don't give me this "both to blame" crap. There's now a nearly 40-year record of Republicans cutting taxes while hiking spending and Democrats coming in to clean up the mess.
Yes... People getting older does not mandate that the Government spend more... Politicians can cut those expenditures whenever they dare to.
I'll have to study PAYGO rules further.
It's a household economics kind of a deal. If you want to reduce spending, do without the stuff you want to buy. Government provides schools and health care. We provide more of the latter because we are getting older. We can choose to get younger. But if we do, we will drive up the cost of education.
--Hiram
It's the curious thing about Republicans. They want to spend less but they have an inability to correlate that to real world impact, that spending less means having fewer things we would otherwise like to have. And they seem totally, blissfully even, aware that if people pay less for stuff with their taxes, they will end up spending for it in some other manner, often in ways that are inefficient raising overall costs.
--Hiram
The interesting thing is that providing schools is an investment the future of America. As are roads, bridges, infrastructure, law & order, national defense, etc.
Spending on people who had more kids than they can afford, saved too little for retirement, did not succeed in K-12, etc is just a charitable choice that has good and bad consequences.
"if people pay less for stuff with their taxes, they will end up spending for it in some other manner"
Hiram,
So your are saying that if I get to keep 10% more of my family's income...
My family gets to choose where it is spent.
Instead of having nameless faceless bureaucrats in Washington DC do so...
Sign me up !!! Please feel free to keep sending them ever bigger checks from your account.
My family gets to choose where it is spent.
Oh sure, it's just that I get stuck with bill for your choices.
Choice is fine, but it's also expensive. In terms of policy, having more choices might be something people want. But when people do have more choices it seems to me that they are not in a good position to complain about the additional cost associated with having more choices.
Bureaucrats aren't only found in government. They also populate the private sector. And for myself, I am often boggled by the vast sums of money they decide to pay themselves, huge costs that all of us eventually end up on the hook for, one way or another.
--Hiram
What are you talking about???
Have you been taking the correct meds? :-)
I was thinking mainly in the area of health care and insurance. Basically, people want to break up insurance pools in the belief that they will get a better deal. In a narrow sense, they may but the reality is that they get stuck with the bills they are trying to avoid in other ways, as cost burdens are shifted. What also happens is those cost shifters also charge for their services, again increasing costs. These things are done in the private sector where management pays itself unimaginable sums of money for doing things that raise costs to the consumers, breaking up insurance pools and what not.
==Hiram
As spending has not increased (as % of gdp) in the last 40 years it must be a revenue problem. Which party is it that keeps cutting taxes?
The GOP only cares about paygo when we have a dem president and they can take zero credit for the fact that obamacare was paid for because not a single repub voted for it. I believe when GW expanded medicare it was not paid for.
Look at the third chart, in ~1998 the spend went down ~18%... And the revenue went up to ~20%.
It also shows that revenues are heading back towards ~20%...
Unfortunately spend is heading towards 30%... And this is just the Federal spend... Then you need to add ~15% for State and Local...
So yes spending is going to become a BIG BIG problem.
Hiram,
Though I love the idea of single payer healthcare for it's simplicity.
I also understand that nothing good comes from monopolies...
Be they run by a company or a government...
Here is an interesting definition of PAYGO.
Apparently both parties ignore PAYGO when convenient.
And please remember that I am not here to defend the GOP... They are cutting taxes and increasing spending like self centered teenagers with someone else's credit card.
I also understand that nothing good comes from monopolies...
I do understand that. But the problem with our system is that the multiple participants don't compete with each other. The Health insurance business, for example has few participants. It's something of a natural monopoly.
I have to say, I do get frustrated with the idea while prices are too high, weOur won't do anything to lower them. The inefficiencies in our health care system benefit a lot of people, many of them politically powerful. And maybe they are good policy. But then, it just doesn't make sense to complain about the high cost of those inefficiencies.
--Hiram
Something people generally understand is that private health insurance could not survive if they had to compete with government health care. Private health insurance needs the advantages of a monopolized market place in order to survive.
==Hiram
Those are some pretty big claims.
Source or sources please.
Laurie,
Now that you have looked at all of these charts, do you accept that Kevin was working to manipulate you?
He used the normal tricks:
- Scale the graph so the line looks flat (hides variability)
- Only show one variable (spend only)
- Pick a range that supports one's argument (ie 1980 to now)
The other graphs are much better. They:
- Zoom in so one can see the variability
- Show spend a revenue so one can compare
- Show more history and our best forward looking estimates.
You can blather on all you want and post all your sources on PAYGO. Here's the reality: Democrats passed the ACA and paid for it. Republicans cut taxes and raise spending. They passed Medicare Part D with nary a dime in revenues to support it.
To say you don't defend the GOP is absurd. You keep voting for them!
"The other graphs are much better. They:
- Zoom in so one can see the variability"
This is a trick, too. The reality is that net federal spending since 1980, except for the blip during the Great Recession (which was more a result of declining GDP than out of control spending) has been remarkably flat.
As with my Trump / Hillary decision, technically I am voting against the Democratic platform...
I dislike portions of the GOP platform and some of their candidates, however I dislike them less than I dislike the DEM platform...
This 2 party system does have it's down side.
How is seeing the variability better a "trick"?
Is that like standing further away from a car makes it look better because you can not see the scratches? Man that car looks great from 200 feet away...
What is special about starting at 1980? Why would one skip 1960 - 1980?
More Information
This explains well how pension and healthcare has been squeezing out the other funding like Defense, Infrastructure, etc)
"How is seeing the variability better a "trick"?"
What one has to determine is if the variability is material or not. I would argue that small range of variance we've seen over that time is not material. Zooming in to make it look like there have been these huge up and downs is a trick.
"What is special about starting at 1980? Why would one skip 1960 - 1980?"
I would argue that Reagan's election in 1980 represents the start of our current political era. Going back to 1960 (when our population was only slightly more than half what it is today, when our society was a lot less diverse, and when our culture was a lot different) isn't necessarily a good guidepost to use for evaluating where we are today.
"As with my Trump / Hillary decision, technically I am voting against the Democratic platform..."
The platform doesn't vote.
Let's break it down to a practical example -- Erik Paulsen. You've seen him act as one of those Republicans you say you're not here to defend. Are you going to vote for him again, after he's busted all of his "numbers guy" promises?
Or are you going to vote for this platform?
Oh, by the way, defense spending ain't getting squeezed out. That's just nonsense.
Of course "zooming in" and comparing spend and revenue matters when the difference between them is only a few percentage points. Ooh look... Spending is pretty stable... Oh oh it is stable above a stable revenue line... Now what...
The biggest change between 1960 and 1980 was not the demographics... It was the huge growth in entitlements and regulations... That is why Kevin Drum left it off. He wants to people to forget how far Left we moved back them.
As for Phillips vs Paulsen, I will need to continue to study...
Here is my proof that it is being squeezed down. What is your proof that it is not?
I am fine with where it is, but I sure don't need all those savings going out as checks to unsuccessful and/or irresponsible citizens, with no expectations for their year over year improvement.
Paying to help them improve is a great investment...
Paying to keep them stupid, irresponsible and/or lazy is throwing good money after bad...
"What is your proof that it is not?"
Congress appropriated $60B more than what the Defense Department requested, for starters. The fact that the defense budget grows unabated regardless of party. Those are two big pieces of evidence.
So your proof is that it grew some recently...
That is like Jerry saying that man made climate change is a fraud because we had a few really cold days. :-)
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