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This makes sense, except that we've been spending with wild abandon since (at least) Reagan. If we've managed to keep it afloat that long, why is it so improbab
by lukifer 16y ago
This makes sense, except that we've been spending with wild abandon since (at least) Reagan. If we've managed to keep it afloat that long, why is it so improbable that we might continue to do so for another decade or two (or longer)?
(I'm not sure myself either way, just playing devil's advocate.)
- jerf 16y agoThere's been a sea change in the "wild abandon" in the past few years: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-federal-government-outlays-vs-median-household-income-2010-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/us-federal-government-outlays... (Look carefully at the X and Y axes; that's not a traditional chart and time is not X or Y. But it's one of the more interesting ones I came up with.) Bush started it, Obama made pretty sounding noises about fixing it but has doubled down on it, and shows no signs of stopping even though the "recession" excuse is fading away.
- dantheman 16y agoInterest on the debt, currently it's about 200 Billion (10% of tax receipts). In 2020, it will be 800 Billion (40% of the federal budget), if you add in medicare and SS then boom you're over 100%. Exponential growth while slow at the start, can relatively quickly become quite large. http://investmentwatchblog.com/interest-expense-on-the-us-debt-is-expected-to-jump-to-800-billion-in-2020/ http://investmentwatchblog.com/interest-expense-on-the-us-de...