I & I Editorial BoardThe next time you hear someone complaining that DOGE is “slashing” federal spending or “dismantling” the government, pay close attention. There will almost certainly be an important fact left out: The gargantuan federal deficit.
Every day brings a new sob story about how someone is being hurt by Elon Musk’s chainsaw because some federal program is being shut down, or because a precious federal job has been axed.
Never in any of these is any context provided. And in this case, context is everything.
By the time President Donald Trump took office – four months into the new fiscal year (which started last October), the federal government was already $840 billion in the red. That’s a 58% increase from the prior year.
If all goes well, the deficit for this year will total $1.9 trillion, according to the Treasury Department, which would be the third annual increase.
The result is that the national debt is now $37 trillion – more than double what it was a decade ago. Interest on the debt took off like a rocket under Joe Biden.
None of this is sustainable.
And if anyone suggests to you that Trump’s 2017 tax cuts are to blame, they aren’t.
This year, revenues will equal 18.7% of the nation’s GDP. That’s well above the postwar average of 17.2% – and it is a level that has been topped only seven times in the past 80 years.
Too much spending, not too little taxation, is the problem.
This year, federal spending is on course to equal 25% of GDP, which is significantly higher than the 20% postwar average, and a level topped only twice since World War II – (both times because of massive COVID spending).
Not all of this is Joe Biden’s fault. The federal government has not run a balanced budget since 2001. Ten of the past 20 years have seen annual deficits above $1 trillion. Runaway entitlements are making it nearly impossible to balance the budget. And Republicans have often proved just as eager as Democrats to spend money we don’t have.
But Biden made everything much, much worse.
Why is this context always missing from all those “slashing” stories?
Because Democrats and the press don’t want the public to know just how dire the nation’s fiscal situation is. The public is already generally supportive of DOGE’s efforts to eliminate waste. But if it knew just how bad things were, support for deep spending cuts would only increase.
The same is true for Medicaid. Democrats are howling about proposals to cut Medicaid spending by $800 billion – over 10 years.
What’s never mentioned is the fact that Medicaid spending shot up 68% over the past decade. If the government simply returned to what Medicaid spent the year Biden took office, it would save almost $700 billion over the next decade.
Trump has promised to drain the swamp. He’s off to a fast start. But it will take much more than a few months of high-profile cancellations of grants and firings to get the budget under control. The Golden Age might be upon us, but it will be smothered in its crib if Democrats, weak-kneed Republicans, and a corrupt media keep playing the same games that got us into this mess in the first place.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Who has not complained about the obvious waste, bloat and squandering of our taxes by all levels of government, but about the Feds wasting our taxes in more massive gobs than the state and local government’s waste, in the last decades?
And now, it seems the same people are complaining that this administration is brave and wise enough to even attempt to reduce the obvious waste, bloat and squandering in such big gobs.
Why not say, “Great! This is what we want to strengthen our country.”
run amok spending is bad juju and will put the US bankrupt.. Getting the budget under control should be the only issue for the next 6 months, at least, maybe a full year or more depending
All very true, BUT the current M1 is about half the $37 trillion federal debt. Buying back 1% of the debt (in dollars,) is $370 billion, which is but scratching the surface. One trillion a year would pay it off in 37 years. Would America stand for that kind of a hit to the economy? Yes, the growth of the debt has to be stopped/slowed, but don’t expect any real reduction in the debt.
Although I agree with you and I do believe that our current debt of $37 Trillion is an (in Washington Speak)”Existential” threat to our economy and to our future.
Why is it that the context of how much debt we owe and how much interest must be paid is never mentioned by the MainStreamPress (MSM)?
This- I believe- is why:
It’s postulated that MSM is nearly 95% Democratic- and MSNBC, CNN, NYT and Washington Post may be even more, especially their editorial voices.
My point is that they are-Bidenesque like- not concerned with the debt. This is not because they don’t like giving “context”, but rather because they are all idiots and so are not really worried about the “Existential Threat” or our debt.
(I live in a suburb of Cincinnati. This was such a beautiful and lovely Spring-like day-and then I read your I&I piece, and now I have the winter doldrums again.)
Someone who is a respected economist needs to do a 20 minute podcast explaining to the American people in a practical and plausible way how the growing federal deficit and annual deficit spending is likely to lead to disaster. How will that come about and what will it look like? It is not enough to keep saying “we’ll go bankrupt” or “it’s unsustainable” or that “ we are passing on the responsibility to our grandchildren.” After decades of hearing these warnings it’s like hearing someone “crying wolf”. No one takes the warnings seriously.
Here’s a novel approach.
a 10 percent cut across the board on EVERY SINGLE THING.
There, massive savings and nobody can cry rayyysuss or any of that other garbage.
Learn to live with less, be more SELF sufficient. Spend what you have not what I have too!
Seriously 10 percent across the board, everyone can suck it up a little bit. Give it two years, let them SEE it wasn’t the end of the world… THEN DO IT AGAIN!! until we are zero’d out.
Agreed! DOGE, a much better way!
I, as President, would have cut 10% from every department’s budget with the requirement to my new department heads, to cut, as you see fit, 10% of the unnecessary things that encrust and encumber your department this year.
You, my department heads, are best positioned to do these cuts…this is a beneficial and pro government approach….by keeping the best and ridding us of the not so good.
Next year would be another mandatory 10% cut until we are where our government departments should be. Possibly another 10% the third year.
Every level of government, States and Cities, need to do the same DOGE cleansing to achieve the effective and efficient governments we pay for.
What’s worse, it’s been over 25 years since Congress followed regular order and passed a budget. The last time Congress passed a budget resolution under regular order was in 1997. Since then, Congress has relied on continuing resolutions and cromnibus spending bills to fund the government, bypassing the formal budget process.