RSS 2.0 FeedWhy The Federal Budget Keeps Rising
by Doug MataconisRobert Samuelson has an excellent column in today’s Washington Post explaining why the federal budget keeps going up, and why neither political party wants to do anything about it:
The welfare state has made budgeting an exercise in futility. Both liberals and conservatives, in their own ways, peddle phony solutions. Cut waste, say conservatives. Well, network news reports of $20 million federal programs that don’t work may seem — and be — scandalous, but like Amtrak they’re usually mere blips in the total budget. For its 2008 budget, the Bush administration brags it would end or sharply reduce 141 programs. But most are microscopic; total savings would be $12 billion, or 0.4 percent of spending. Worse, Congress has previously rejected some of these cuts.
(…)
Annual budget debates are sterile — long on rhetoric, short on action — because each side blames the other for a situation that neither chooses to change. To cut spending significantly, conservatives would have to go after popular welfare programs, including Social Security and Medicare. To raise taxes significantly, liberals would have to go after the upper middle class, a constituency they covet (two-thirds of all federal taxes come from the richest fifth). Deficits persist, because neither side risks its popularity, and, indeed, both sides pursue popularity with new spending programs and tax breaks.
It’s really quite simple to understand once you think about it. In 1956, Social Security and other welfare-type payments constituted 21% of the Federal Budget and defense spending constituted 57% of the budget. Today, as Samuelson points out, the situation is entirely reserved, so-called “entitlement” programs constitute 59% of the budget and defense spending only 21%.
This graphs says it all:
Politically, neither party thinks it can afford to go after the source of the problem. And until that happens, spending will only continue to increase.
