The black line is how much revenue (tax money) the government takes in. The bars represent the amount of spending the government does each year, and it breaks it down by type of spending. If the black line is higher than the bars, that means we raised more money than we spent -- budget surplus (like in 2000, under Clinton). If the black line is lower than the bar, budget deficit -- we're in the red, that is our deficit.
Ugh, I don't even know where to begin. First, you can see under Bush that revenue went down (bc he cut taxes), but spending went up. This is pretty irresponsible. BUT! He started doing much better in his second term -- the black revenue line almost catches the spending. Who knew? I didn't. Not sure what's going on there, but it should be noted (I think this is right) that this chart doesn't take into account war-spending, so the actual spending under Bush was significantly higher.
The second point is more important -- what happened to revenue between 2008 and 2009? It PLUMMETED. Why? Recession! Recessions make people poorer, and poorer people pay less taxes, so the government collects less money. At the same time, government spent a lot more on entitlements than in previous years, because we were paying more unemployment insurance, medicaid, and the stimulus. That is economics 101 - not having the government step in and pay for those things would just lead to more poverty and misery. But, as we start to grow again, revenue shoots back up, as it's doing now.
Third, and this is in direct response to Max (finally found the chart I was looking for!), you can see pretty clearly that defense spending and non-defense discretionary spending (basically, everything but entitlements like social security and medicaid and all the other stuff) are pretty flat. You can cut military spending in half and you'd still have a budget deficit. Same for cutting the non-defense discretionary spending -- that's what Republicans in the House are cutting now. Chump change! The cause of the increase in the deficit mirrors entitlements and interest on the debt. As those green and purple lines jump up, so does the deficit. That's where we need to be focusing on for real cuts -- the other stuff is all smoke and mirrors.
It's so nice to not have any updates today. Thanks for not posting any new trash.
ReplyDeleteDirect Jewish evangelism as our priority
ReplyDeleteThere is an old Yiddish phrase, "Man drives but God holds the reins." As Jews for Jesus we take that a step further, recognizing that we are dependent on God and His Word for all that we do. Apart from Christ and the power of His Spirit, we can do nothing. Yet we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. And through Him we can commit ourselves to certain values.