Bloomberg has a very informative story on the federal deficit. The good news – it’s down almost a third from last year. The bad news – it’s still huge. Spending is still a record highs. Revenues have increased to offset some, but by no means all of that spending.
Military spending so far this fiscal year totaled $349.1 billion compared with $328.3 billion a year earlier. Spending on Medicare totaled $249.2 billion compared with $214.4 billion a year earlier. Spending on Social Security totaled $407.3 billion compared with $385.7 billion a year earlier.
Anybody know a good way to compare those numbers with the same categories of spending from 10 years ago, taking into account inflation, population growth, and the like?
A bit more from the Bloomberg piece:
Since the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, the budget deficit totaled $148.5 billion, down 35 percent from a shortfall of $227 billion a year earlier. For all of this year the shortfall could narrow to $150 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said May 4. That would be the smallest deficit this decade. In fiscal 1998-2001, the Treasury posted yearly budget surpluses.
I wonder where we could be in terms of fiscal stability had the path of optional war in Iraq not been chosen. Couldn’t have hurt things if the money spent in Iraq were applied to the deficit or, even better, to the accumulated national debt.
It’s remarkable the deficit has been dropping so sharply despite all the war spending. That speaks volumes about the revenue increases generated by the Bush tax cut.
Really? The tax cuts happened, what, six years ago? They were followed by a surplus becoming record deficits for years on end. Now those record deficits are declining to merely obscene rather than astronomical levels, and it’s vindication for the tax cuts of lo those many years ago? Seriously?
The “merely obscene” current deficits are lower than the first half of the Clinton era (which were nearly 50% of GDP).
When this fiscal year ends it will be the third straight year of record revenues.
Yes, seriously.
Clinton inherited large deficits which went down every single year of his presidency until they became surpluses. Bush inherited surpluses which under his leadership became record deficits. To say that Bush’s deficits this late in his presidency compare somehow to early Clinton deficits, and think that it means something, is a bit silly. What you’re really doing is comparing Bush II deficits to the remnants of Bush I’s deficits.
Also, you’ve confused “deficits” and “debt”. The deficit is about 3-4% of GDP. The deficit was never 50% of GDP under Clinton. The accumulated national debt (the lion’s share of which accumulated under Reagan and GHW Bush)was 50% of GDP in 1993 at the beginning of Clinton’s presidency, and declined to 35% of GDP at the end of his presidency. As of 2005, the debt was 64% of GDP. The fact that the debt went from 35% of GDP in 2000 to 64% of GDP five years later counters your argument, and once again underscores what shitty stewards of the budget the combined forces of Bush and his Republican majority in Congress were.
OK, that 35% for Clinton was debt held by the public, not the total debt (the difference is intergovernmental debt or money the government owes itself (I swear they muddle up the numbers to purposely make it hard for us to know what we owe). The total debt was about $5.4 trillion at the end of the Clinton years, and was 57% of GDP (down from a high of 67% of GDP). Under Bush, the total debt has risen to $8.85 trillion, and risen to 66% of GDP.
Looking more longterm, the debt as a percentage of GDP was approaching 100% at the end of World War II, but it steadily declined annually to a level of 33% when Reagan took office. During the Reagan years the debt as a percent of GDP went up to 52%, and GHW Bush took it up to 64%. Under Clinton, it rose from 64% to 67%, and then declined to 57% of GDP by the end of his presidency (a hostile Congress contributing to the effort). At this moment the total debt is back up to over 66% of GDP, having risen 9% under Bush.
Still, using “as a percentage of GDP” numbers, Clinton beats Bush, especially in light of the fact that under Clinton, the astronomical rise of the debt from 33% up to 64% of GDP during Reagan-Bush was reversed down to 57%. In contrast, Bush reversed the decline of the debt as a percentage of GDP and has returned it to record levels.