[crusso]

demagoguery of the national debt as a result of excessive costs

If you look at government revenues as a percentage of GDP (your first link) over the last century, they've actually stayed within a fairly narrow window between 15%-20%. With the expiration of the "Bush Tax Cuts", they're up to average levels.

If you look at expenditures, historically they've hovered in the same range. Recently, they've climbed to over 24% of GDP.

How can you look at historical revenue AND expenditure levels and call the unsustainability of spending "demagoguery"?

We have a spending problem.

[nhashem]

If you look at government revenues as a percentage of GDP (your first link) over the last century, they've actually stayed within a fairly narrow window between 15%-20%.

This is like saying my weight has stayed within a fairly narrow window of 150 pounds to 275 pounds. Your "narrow window" is massive. And it's not even accurate, because there is not one single year prior to 2009 in the Tax Policy Center link showing tax receipts under 16%. Historically, the window is more like 17%-19%.

How can you look at historical revenue AND expenditure levels and call the unsustainability of spending "demagoguery"?

I'm not arguing our government should spend 24% of GDP ad infinitum. I was just as enraged in the 2000s during the W. Bush deficits. Had we been running balanced budgets and not fighting absurd wars in Iraq, running deficits to get out of a recession would not nearly be controversial.

But please, to crusso or anyone else, please explain to me what the causes of our "spending problem" are. The only projected growth in spending is due to Medicare, which is a healthcare spending problem, not a government program problem[0].

So are you suggesting we should cut Medicare? My parents have some health issues, and if it wasn't for Medicare, they'd probably be dead. I left my day job in 2011 knowing that I was unlikely to be financially burdened by their well-being, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. But how many startups will die before they're even born because software engineers are too worried about leaving their day job and covering not just their health insurance but their parents? And when will the deficit-mongers finally realize that while government programs technically require taxation, they can provide a basis of society for us to unleash our maximum capitalist risk-taking potential?

[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/11/09/t...

[crusso]

during the W. Bush deficits

Jeez, man... "Bush Bush Bush Bush". I didn't vote for the guy. I didn't support his war on Iraq or his failure to veto just about anything except for stem cell research... but get over it. He's been gone for years. The guy most in control now is like a human wrecking ball. He's spent far more than Bush did. He's spent more than any person in the history of the world. Let's focus on the current problems and stop using the previous politician as an excuse for continued irresponsible behavior of the current one.

So are you suggesting we should cut Medicare?

I'm saying we match expenditures to revenues, including interest on the debt and considering long term unfunded liabilities so we don't go bankrupt (or the money printing equivalent).

If Social Security needs to be a little means tested and the age raised, so be it. If Medicare needs to be means tested, age raised, or what have you... then so be it. I'd think that all these measures could be minimized if we closed the hundreds of redundant government programs, didn't compensate government employees almost twice the private sector ones, made public sector unions illegal, cut defense (although it's one of the few Constitutional responsibilities of the Feds), etc.

Instead of continuing to punt all this stuff further along, we need to put measures in place to prevent financial collapse. If for no other reason, we have NO RIGHT to burden future generations with exorbitant debt.

[nhashem]

I mentioned George W. Bush a single time. I fully recognize the "Bush did it too" or "Bush was worse" is a poor political argument. I also made my original arguments to be as factually based as possible and tried to avoid the usual partisan talking points, since this is ultimately about economics, not politics, and we have things like numbers and math to form lines of logical arguments with. Statements like "he's spent more than any person in the history of the world" are just pure misguiding hyperbole at best, and completely false at worst. In the 1940s, the federal deficit was 22% of GDP. In 2009, the federal deficit was 10% of GDP, and it hasn't been in double digits since. At least amend your statement to, "Obama has run bigger deficits as a percentage of GDP than any president not fighting Nazis," which would at least be accurate.

In any event -- all I'm saying is that I'm very much a "deficit hawk" in any condition where the Federal Reserve has to keep interest rates above. Cut the deficit, offset the spending by lowering borrowing costs, so the private sector can borrow more cheaply for the purposes of growth. Hooray! The problem is when you have such a bad recession that borrowing costs are effectively zero, for the government and anyone else, and you still have high unemployment and no inflation.

You cannot go bankrupt if you print your own currency. You can always print more money, which is why Japan has no problems borrowing money at low interest rates even with a 250% debt to GDP ratio[0]. Yes, I know, "OMG Weimer and Zimbabwe HYPERINFLATION!" This is why the US government doesn't just print money, it issues bonds that the Federal Reserve buys by printing money, giving the Federal Reserve the ability to constrain said money supply if the economy recovers. And by the way, if we have inflation, that is a good thing, as it means enough people have enough jobs and income that they are spending enough money. If you can give me a scenario where we have inflation without full employment, I'd love to hear it. the same people have been ranting about hyperinflation for years. Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles presented their famous "Simpson-Bowles" budget in 2011, and prefaced it by saying the US needed to take these budget steps or else they would face issues with rising interest rates or inflation in about two years[1]. 2011 was two years ago. Hmm.

If Social Security needs to be a little means tested and the age raised, so be it. If Medicare needs to be means tested, age raised, or what have you... then so be it.

Let me get this straight. Because some entities in our private sector did some really dumb (or malicious) things, and the resulting speculation bust led to massive unemployment, the solution is... cutting core government programs that had nothing to do with it? And you want to do it by turning Social Security into a welfare program (bet it'll still be politically popular after that!) and by raising the age of Medicare, which means all the poor people that will actually need it will probably be dead, because even fewer of them will live to 67 or whatever age you want to raise it to. And we need this to prevent "financial collapse," even though countries with much more debt relative to us have not come anywhere near collapsing.

Yeah, we have a lot of useless bureaucrats in government. But I'd love to see how much of our federal budget they actually take up, because it's probably not as much as you think. I don't like my taxpayer money going to useless bureaucrats either, but it's a complete exaggeration that this is the reason why the US is on the "road to ruin." In general, public sector employment is the lowest it's been in decades[3]. Apparently the man who has "spent more than any person in the history of the world" has not spent enough money to keep all those public sector employees employed.

If for no other reason, we have NO RIGHT to burden future generations with exorbitant debt.

Sadly, perhaps one of the biggest fallacies that usually comes up with the discussion. As I gave in my example, because of Medicare, I don't have to pay for my parents to have health insurance. If the government needs to tax me now or later because of that, I don't consider that a "burden." I consider that something that has freed me to take greater capitalist risks in starting my own company, that should hopefully provide even greater gains for the country's economy. And if we're spending too much on Medicare because we're spending too much on medicine in general, then we should solve that problem, not cut Medicare. For a much more eloquent description of this concept, I refer you to Paul Krugman[3].

And that's all the time we have for today, ladies and gentlemen. After I post this, I'll be editing my /etc/hosts file, as it's now 3pm, and I really need to get some work done. Sadly, arguing economics on Hacker News doesn't grow our economy nearly as much as coding.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_deb....

[1] http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/03/08/bowles-simpson-fisc...

[2] http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/american-austeri...

[3] http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/on-the-non-burde...

[jbooth]

"We have a spending problem" is a dumbed down, politicized way of putting it.

We have an entitlement problem, caused by a population bump, healthcare cost inflation and increasing lifespans.

[crusso]

When the argument is "taxation vs spending" and the spending side is 33% off historical norms while taxation is within 5% of historical norms... calling something a "spending problem" would seem to be objective.

Listing some of the details for why that spending problem exists doesn't make it any less or more politicized. It's just adding details.

[jbooth]

It's absolutely politicized. The obligations driving our spending were on the ledger 15, 30 years ago, everyone knew it. But now we hear about 'overspending during the obama administration' as if it was his decision to have people get old and collect their benefits. Or as if he didn't try to attack healthcare costs first thing out of the gate.

Calling it an entitlement problem highlights the problem. Calling it a 'spending problem' obscures it. Do whatever you want.

[crusso]

Or as if he didn't try to attack healthcare costs first thing out of the gate.

Because he didn't? Instead of attacking the root causes of health care costs, he implemented yet another Big Government entitlement program that was in keeping with his socialist ideology.

There were lots of good ideas on reducing healthcare costs. Obamacare includes almost none: http://togetrichisglorious.blogspot.com/2011/04/levitt-on-he...

It's truly ironic that there you are saying that we all knew about the spending obligations 30 years ago regarding SS and Medicare - yet you call yet another government spending obligation that will certainly spiral our of control an effort to reduce healthcare costs.

[nawitus]

"We have an entitlement problem"

USA has very bad social security, in fact unemployment benefits should be increased greatly. People are living in the streets, that's not acceptable in a civil society.

"healthcare cost inflation"

That can be fixed by adopting universal health care.

[nawitus]

"We have a spending problem."

Scandinavian countries spend way more and can balance the budget (though there's the eurocrisis, but it was possible before the depression). The problem with budget deficit in USA is lack of taxation. Tax revenue per GDP is very low.

United States: 26.9% Sweden: 47.9% ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenu... )

Just increase taxing and there's no deficit.

[crusso]

Look at the discussion section on that Wikipedia article. A lot of that chart is for crap because the collection of the tax data is not consistent. In particular, the US's State and Local taxes are not included which puts us far lower. I looked at it yesterday, thinking to use it in a discussion, but gave up because it's just not an accurate picture.