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Title: #MAGA: Federal Deficit Jumps 32 Percent, Hits $895 Billion for Fiscal 2018!
Source:
Reason
URL Source: https://reason.com/blog/2018/09/13/ ... al-deficit-jumps-32-percent-hi
Published: Sep 13, 2018
Author: Nick Gillespie
Post Date: 2018-09-14 11:24:07 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 703
Comments: 6
Never let it be said that Donald Trump and congressional Republicans don't know how to spend money. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), these guys have been slapping down government plastic like the bill is never, ever going to come due: The federal deficit hit $895 billion in the first 11 months of fiscal 2018, an increase of $222 billion, or 32 percent, over the same period the previous year, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The nonpartisan CBO reported that the central drivers of the increasing deficit were the Republican tax law and the bipartisan agreement to increase spending. As a result, revenue only rose 1 percent, failing to keep up with a 7 percent surge in spending, it added. Some of that increase was due to "timing effects," such as holidays that meant some outlays were made in August this year and September last year. But even when you account for all that, says CBO, the increase in spending still comes to 4.7 percent and the increase in the deficit is $154 billion. Remember, that's with a Republican Congress and president. Isn't the GOP supposed to be the party of fiscal discipline? Spend, spend, spend has been the federal mantra for virtually all of the 21st century, whether the presidents and majorities were Republican or Democratic. True, there was a flattening of spending for a coupla-three years a while ago, but that was only after a major upchucking of funds at the very end of the Bush years and start of the Obama era (TARP, other bailouts, and stimulus plans weren't going to pay for themselves). The chart below shows total federal spending in nominal dollars and the trend line isn't a pretty picture if you believe that government spending is a major indicator of how much control the government wields over your life: Federal budgets of $2 trillion quickly gave way to ones spending more than $3 trillion and, well, why not just kick it up to $4 trillion? As Reason's Peter Suderman noted recently in The New York Times, neither party has even pretended to be serious about deficits and debt for a very long time, so runaway spending shouldn't be surprising. But that doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't be concerned. Over the course of this century, more and more of federal spending is deemed "mandatory," meaning that it's not subject to annual reviews or course corrections. On top of that, the single-largest "discretionary" outlay is defense spending, which always seems to go up, too. As the CBO notes in its latest monthly budget review, which covers the first 11 months of fiscal 2018, there's very little restraint. The return of trillion-dollar deficits is not a welcome development, especially given all the debt our government is already carrying. The federal government's total or gross debt—the amount it owes to the public and to itself—has been over 100 percent for the past seven years. Economists on both the right and the left agree that long periods of such high levels of debt depresses economic growth, sometimes for decades. It's good news that economic growth in the last quarter clocked in at over 4 percent in annualized terms, but there's every reason to believe that spending more and more money that you do not have doesn't end well, for individuals or for nations. The CBO projects economic growth over the next decade to average just 1.9 percent a year over the next decade, which compares incredibly poorly to average annual rates of about 3 percent for much of the period between the end of World War II and the start of the new century. Pushing for fiscal discipline, regardless of which party is in power, isn't something you do for style points; it's one of the underpinnings of strong, long-term economic growth that improves living standards. Related: "Why We Need Less Debt, and Fast!" Photo Credit: Georgetown Book Store Nick Gillespie is the editor at large of Reason and the co-author, with Matt Welch, of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America (2011/2012). The economy might be humming but when are we going to have to, you know, pay for the party already?
US Government Spending 
CBO
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
Looks like we need to get rid of a few thousand more democRat parasites in office, doesn't it?
by Ron Paul According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos survey, 70 percent of Americans, including about 50 percent of Republicans, support Medicare for all, the latest incarnation of single-payer health care. Republican support for a health plan labeled “Medicare for all” is not surprising considering that Republican politicians support Medicare and that one of their attacks on Obamacare was that it would harm the program. Furthermore, the biggest expansion of Medicare since its creation — the Part D prescription drug program — occurred under a conservative president working with a conservative Congress. Conservative Republicans do propose reforming Medicare to reduce its costs, but their proposals are always framed as “saving Medicare,” and most reform plans increase spending. Few conservative Republicans would dare advocate allowing young people to opt out of paying Medicare taxes in exchange for agreeing to forgo Medicare benefits. Many conservative Republicans favor other government interventions into health care, including many features of Obamacare. In fact, Obamacare’s individual mandate originated as a conservative proposal and was once championed by many leading Republicans. Many other Republicans simply lack the courage to repeal Obamacare, so they say they only want to repeal the “unpopular” parts of the law. It would not be surprising if we soon heard conservatives and Republican politicians talk about defending Obamacare from supporters of socialized medicine. The same dynamic at work in health care is at work in other areas. For example, the same conservative administration and Congress that created Medicare Part D also dramatically expanded federal control of education with “No Child Left Behind.” Conservative Republicans who (rightly) fight against deficit spending when a Democrat sits in the White House decide that “deficits don’t matter” when the president has an “R” next to his name. Many Republican politicians — and even conservative intellectuals — will say they are being pragmatic by not fighting progressives on first principles, but instead limiting the damage done by the welfare state. The problem with this line is that, by accepting the premise that government can and should solve all of life’s problems, conservatives and Republicans will inevitably get into a “bidding war” with progressives and Democrats. The only way Republicans can then win is to join Democrats in continually increasing spending and creating new programs. This is why the so-called “conservative welfare state” ends up as bloated and expansive as the progressive welfare state. Refusing to question the premises of the welfarists and socialists is not a pragmatic way to advance liberty. While progressives blame social crises on the free market, Republicans and conservatives are unwilling to admit the problems were caused by prior government interventions. Thus the passage of Dodd-Frank was aided by claims that the housing bubble was created by deregulation, while Obamacare’s passage benefited from widespread misconception that America had a free-market health care system prior to 2010. Until a popular intellectual movement arises that is able and willing to challenge the premises of Keynesianism, welfarism, and democratic socialism, while putting forth a positive vision of a free society, government will continue to expand. Fortunately, such a movement exists and is growing as more Americans — particularly young Americans— are studying the ideas of Liberty and working to spread those ideas. If the new liberty movement grows and stays true to its principles, it will be able to defeat the socialists of all parties, including those who call themselves conservative.
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#6. To: Hank Rearden, No Child Left Behind, *The Two Parties ARE the Same* (#1)
Republicans’ Responsibility for Socialism’s Comeback
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