Click to the story here. He offers this chart, with data based on a report linked to in his article:
And this commentary:
. . . we see that spending for every single government program going forward is remarkably stable as a percentage of GDP. Those who complain loudest about spending and deficits nearly always base their concerns on projections of nominal spending that are unadjusted for inflation, growth of the population or growth of the economy. This is intellectually dishonest.
In fact, virtually all the growth in projected spending comes not from entitlements or giveaways to the poor and lazy, as Republicans would have us believe, but rather from interest on the debt. This is a problem, but not nearly to the extent that it appears.
The reason is that interest on the debt is what economists call a pure transfer. Economically, it is little different from taking money out of your right pocket and putting it into your left pocket. That is because the vast bulk of interest goes to people and institutions who simply use it to buy more Treasury securities.
Not that it's all paid for of course, or that someone might raise a stink about what the programs do, but his point is simply that spending as projected now is stable when compared to GDP - a point that is quite often made. Data can be presented in different ways to try to make different points.
Since we cannot project events like terrorist attacks and recessions, we don't know what will actually occur. Notice that the lines are far more volatile prior to 2012 than after it. The peaks and valleys are the result of changes in the economy, but they do seem to vary in a manner that averages out to the base line he draws going forward. The spike just before 2010 is the spending related to the Great Recession. This points out the need to be mindful of policies that lead to the creation of bubbles.
- The Dish comments here.
