US Economy, Government Finances & Debt – The Final Gory Details (IV)

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% of GDP, average debt maturity, baby boomers, budget deficit, Debt/GDP Ratio, European sovereign debt crisi, fiscal cliff, fiscal deficits, Intragovernmental Holdings, Reinhart & Rogoff, Sell in May, Social Security, US Congress, US government finances, US government revenues, US government spending, US Treasury

Continued from here.

Apologies, readers. Deficits left me feeling a little nauseated, I had to take a little breather on this series! In my last post, I highlighted the 2010 total US budget deficit (ignore the primary deficit, it’s irrelevant) was a whopping 8.9% of GDP. In the past half-century, this is the 2nd largest deficit on record (2009 being the winner), but it’s in good company. Nine of every 10 years politicians have outspent revenues, and in 2009-12 the deficit’s expected to consistently exceed $1 trillion (and 7.5% of GDP). It’s no longer surprising how quickly politicians can turn the truly exceptional into the simply mundane…

I think I also sidestepped the quicksand of Republican vs. Democrat debate?! This debate, and their respective philosophies, seem utterly pointless when there’s no credible attempt to eliminate deficits – it’s just moving the deck chairs ’round the Titanic. And deficit rhetoric’s always presented as ‘spending cuts, no tax hikes‘, or vice versa. Such one-sided (and unworkable) solutions are ludicrous – the only sensible solution is a deficit elimination plan based equally on tax hikes & spending cuts.

US Economy, Government Finances & Debt – Some of the Gory Details (III)

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% of GDP, budget deficit, Democrats, politicians, Republicans, US economy, US government finances, US government revenues, US government spending, US taxes

Continued from here:

Right, in Part II we surveyed US government spending. While spending spiked to 23.7% of GDP in 2010 (the highest since 1946) due to the financial crisis, it otherwise gradually declined over the past few decades to about 19% of GDP in the early 2000s. The decline appears primarily due to decreased defense spending.

We also noted that total US government spending’s among the lowest in the developed world. Despite this, the accompanying decline in tax revenues over the decades now leaves us in a situation where spending’s at 160% of revenues in 2010. What does that mean in terms of the government’s budget deficit and, of course, debt?