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Show HN: Exploring the US Budget, 1962-2019
- b2themax 12y agoGood job, great visuals make it easy to understand the numbers.
- anonymoushn 12y agoHow does the national debt increase from $5,656,270,901,633.43 to $5,674,178,209,886.86 during a year with a $200,000,000,000 surplus?
- nni 12y agoI assume you are referring to 2000. I am very much a newbie in this stuff, but think that the "story" from the OMB outlays/receipts data (which is what this is based on) is only part of the story. For example, I read somewhere that some were arguing that this "surplus" in that period was not a good thing in some respects. There's a lot to learn.
- dripton 12y agoIt wasn't a real on-budget surplus. It was only a surplus if you took the revenue from Social Security tax and ignored the obligation to later pay Social Security with it.
- nni 12y agoHey dripton - curious what your thoughts are on this: http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/ http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-unde... I think that this gets into what the deal might have been with respect to whether you count the social security tax or not. I think that they conclude there is a "surplus" either way, although it is of course smaller. However, you might be referring to something else.
- AnthonyMouse 12y agoThat seems to be saying that accounting for social security would eliminate ~99% of the surplus. But what about medicare and the like?
- judk 12y agoSS benefits are paid from current taxes. There is no Social Security Lock Box, its was a metaphor.
- dmix 12y agoDid some math for fun: DoD 2000-2014 = $282 billion to $587 billion = 2.08x increase over 14 years. Total 2000-2004 = $1.79 trillion to $3.65 trillion = 2.03x increase. So since 9/11 DoD seems to be expanding at the rate of total government expansion, which is pretty rapid. Compared to the 14 years before that from 1985-1999. DoD 1985-1999 = $246 billion to $262 billion = 1.065x increase over 14 years Total 1985-1999 = $946 billion to $1.7 trillion = 1.7x increase So the total government is growing at a similar rate, but DoD exploded in size in the last 14 years.
- refurb 12y agoIt all depends on the time period you measure across. 1985 was near the peak of the Reagan cold war build up. No surprise the budget didn't grow between then and 1999.
- Retric 12y agoUnfortunatly the US budget is intentionally misleading in a wide number of ways. For example there is a lot of DoD spending that's not included in those numbers. Such as veterains affairs. Also, those numbers don't take into account inflation or the current GDP.
- frogpelt 12y agoThey split it up by discretionary and mandatory. Supporting veterans or paying government employees' promised pensions is considered mandatory. Buying 12 new aircraft carriers is not mandatory.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago> They split it up by discretionary and mandatory. Which has always been a bit of a lie for political expediency. Most of the "mandatory" expenditures aren't actually fixed amounts. For example, changing the retirement age or what benefits government health plans provide will directly impact "mandatory" spending.
- frogpelt 12y agoThe projections show the deficit being almost equal to the debt service payments in 2017-2019. There's a lesson about debt in there somewhere.
- imaginenore 12y agoInflation-adjusted version would be useful.
- pdeuchler 12y agoBut would also be difficult, and introduce a political element to it
- seanmcdirmid 12y agoUhm, no. Inflation is a given; these numbers aren't very useful without adjusting for inflation and population and/or GDP growth.
- sokoloff 12y agoInflation itself is a fact. The exact amount of inflation in any given time period is subject to differing points of view. The choice of "which inflation measure" can be viewed as a political choice because it could be carefully chosen to tell the story you prefer. (choice A might yield "Look how much worse measure X was during party Y's tenure" which choice B could tell an even-handed or even opposing story)
- seanmcdirmid 12y agoWe have had and do have independent agencies to measure inflation. But if you wish, we also measure GDP which is an absolute number. Here is the budget with respect to GDP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_Revenues_and_Outlays_as_Percent_GDP,_2014.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_Revenues_and_Outlays... We start out with outlays at under 16% GDP in 1970, and go all the way up to 20% in 2014, with a spike up to 24% during the last crisis. Not surprising, shocking, or daramatic at all. This is better than even the inflation adjusted numbers; e.g. http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/economics/econprinciples2001/pdfs/C10-01C-820487.pdf http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/economics/econprinc... Well, W2, we spent a lot of money then, but even still, federal spending by 2000 was 8X that of spending in 1940. Why is that? Well, population growth obviously, higher expectations as another. By going with ABSOLUTE numbers with no context on population, inflation, and GDP...that's very biased. Edit: the charts are still useful, if you look at them only for relatively distribution of spending. They don't convey how spending compares to the overall economy, however.
- pdeuchler 12y agoIs this on github/bitbucket/google code or am I going to have to dig around the JS to mess around with it? Regardless, pretty cool.
- sheetjs 12y agoYour possibilities aren't mutually exclusive: There are many unminified javascript files floating around that are not OSS. > Is this OSS Unless the author releases it under an open source license, the answer is no > am I going to have to dig around minified JS to mess around with it? The unminified source is available at http://learnforeverlearn.com/usbudget/dist/usbudget.js http://learnforeverlearn.com/usbudget/dist/usbudget.js The source data is available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/supplemental http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/supplemental (note that XLS files are the normative versions)
- pdeuchler 12y agoEdited comment to change tone and clarify what I was asking
- rando289 12y agoOver time comparisons should be inflation adjusted, and optionally adjusted by total population or gdb.
- chrismealy 12y agoThe government really is an insurance company with an army.
- Agathos 12y agoMy impulsive response would be that no insurance company would be stupid enough to sign up for such a certain loss. But then again, AIG.
- gobengo 12y agoWhen you think about it, that's not a bad definition of government in < 140 chars.
- chrismealy 12y agoIt's not my line: http://underbelly-buce.blogspot.com/2013/01/more-on-holland-principle.html http://underbelly-buce.blogspot.com/2013/01/more-on-holland-...
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Aloha 12y agoThis would be more helpful is it was indexed to inflation, the numbers are quite misleading otherwise.
- dredmorbius 12y agoI like this. First response: I'd prefer the total spending was more clearly highlighted (larger font and/or to the side). Inflation-adjusted or percent of total GDP would also be useful. The detail pop-ups are pretty sweet. A little hard to navigate (somewhat a property of space available). Maybe give them more of the window -- if someone's looking at the detail show them the detail and allocate display space to it.
- jack9 12y agoThe elimination of the deficit from 1996 to 2001 makes the data suspect. The political story about deficit elimination was pushed by Clinton and ultimately a matter of the OMB playing with numbers as a political tool. I'm really surprised by how long misinformation lives.
- wdr1 12y agoBeautiful visualization! I really like it. Only semi-related, but something I've always wondered: Like a lot of other sources, this graph shows us running surplus in '98 & '99. At the same time, the federal debt increased in those years: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histd... Can anyone explain why?
- MaysonL 12y ago"Debt" includes the Treasury securities held by Social Security and Medicare trust funds, I believe.
- joshuaheard 12y agoWithout looking at the issue, I can say that the "deficit" and "surplus" are for the budget. Actual spending may differ, which may explain the rise of the debt.
- pandatigox 12y agoReally nice visualization - helps to put things in perspective. Interesting how 2009 shows a US deficit in the trillions.
- judk 12y agoSigh, another fancy site that doesn't work on mobile, but could be presented with simple divs/tables or even ASCII art.
- nni 12y agojudk - not sure if you're checking back, but wondering what device you are using. It has some responsive design stuff that should let it be usable on an iPhone in portrait (it just shows the two main bars). Small screen landscape is another issue.