For anyone who doesn't believe entitlements + interest on the debt will crowd out all other spending

[DreamGypsy]

57. I am not disputing the fact that the MyGovCost website is spinning data to support its purposes...

...or that the Mother Jones article is spinning the data to support its purposes.

It just happens that the charts shown on the MyGovCost site, labeled Chart 5 and Chart 6, are exactly the same as the charts identically labeled on pages 5 and 6 of the pdf for A Citizen's Guide to the 2012 Financial Report of the U.S. Government downloaded from the US Treasury website. Did you happen to notice that? Yes, they made a copy of the graphics ... probably because they couldn't link directly to the pdf.

Both charts appear in the section of the report entitled Where We Are Headed, which begins on page 5 (well, actually page v - the page numbers are Roman numerals). The text on pages v and vi that surround the first graphic reads as follows:

Receipts, Spending, and the Debt
Chart 5 shows historical and current policy projections for receipts, non-interest spending by major category, and total spending expressed as a percent of GDP. The difference between the receipts and noninterest spending shares of GDP - the primary deficit-to-GDP ratio, grew rapidly in 2009 due to the financial crisis and the recession, and the Federal Government’s response. The ratio stayed large from 2010 to 2012 despite shrinking in each successive year, but is projected to fall rapidly between 2013 and 2018 as the economy recovers and spending reductions called for in the BCA take effect, reaching primary balance in 2018, and remaining relatively flat and near zero until 2021. Between 2022 and 2039, however, increased spending for Social Security and health programs due to continued aging of the population and anticipated rising health costs is expected to cause the primary deficit- to-GDP ratio to steadily deteriorate, reaching 2.3 percent of GDP in 2039. After 2039, the ratio is projected to slowly decline to 1.7 percent of GDP in 2087 as the impact of the baby boom generation retiring dissipates. In these projections, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) 7 provision of health insurance subsidies and expanded Medicaid coverage boost federal spending, and other provisions significantly reduce per-beneficiary Medicare and Medicaid cost growth. Overall, the ACA is projected to substantially reduce
federal expenditures over the next 75 years. However, as noted in the Report, there is uncertainty about the effectiveness of the ACA’s provisions designed to reduce health care cost growth. Even if those provisions work as intended and as assumed in these projections, Chart 5 still shows a persistent gap between projected receipts and total non-interest spending.

The chart shown by Mother Jones is from http://www.motherjones.com/files, the file is blog_cbo_public_debt_february_2013.jpg



As I highlight in bold in the text excerpted from the report, the Chart 5 data falls a bit and is flat until 2021, which is basically what the Mother Jones chart shows AND what Kevin Drum was banging on in the article. So, looks like Treasure Department and the CBO were talking to each other....which is a good thing. However, the Citizen's Guide covers projections out to 2080 and beyond (probably 2090, but that last label is missing) where things get more dicey and, of course, more vague.

My bottom line: Everybody who cares about the debt debate should download and read the Citizen's Guide and at least attempt to understand the implications. The guide is only viii pages. A lot more reading background reading material is available on the Treasury website.


BTW: The link " target="_blank">Here's the scary debt chart in the Mother Jones article actually gets to this diagram on the cbo website:



which is different, but provides the same data, just vertically rescaled