Comments on: Kevin Drum Is An Innumerate Hack

By: Tax the rich

Tax the rich — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 00:32:09 +0000

Up thread: Bonus: I learned a new word, “innumerate”.

The. Perfect. Comment.
Ignorant feces attract ignorant flies.

By: Dr. T

Dr. T — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 05:55:31 +0000

The time period is cherry-picked, the slopes are wrong, and Kevin Drum displays his biases. I’ll let others argue those points. The issue that I’m opposing is the belief that federal government spending should be linked to Gross Domestic Product. Our GDP has increased over time mostly because private agriculture, manufacturing, and service businesses improved productivity and efficiency. (Population increase accounts for only 25% of the 6.5-fold increase of inflation-adjusted GDP from 1950 to 2010.) Improved productivity and efficiency in the private sector should not automatically allow the federal government to spend more.

We should not fight bad graphs with more bad graphs. Graphs of federal spending over time should have inflation-adjusted dollars on the y-axis. A correction for population is appropriate. (The correction should be much less than the mean federal spending per person, because much federal spending is unrelated to population.) A graph of real federal spending (in inflation-adjusted dollars with correction for population) from 1950 to 2010 shows almost continuous increases (usually with slopes greater than those shown on the GDP-based graphs) with a massive jump in spending at FY2009.

By: Brad Warbiany

Brad Warbiany — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:22:42 +0000

Jeff,

Sometimes I just can’t help myself…

Terence,

This is true. Medicare & SS spending is projected to rise considerably, and much of the problem exists outside of active policies by either Republicans or Democrats. I didn’t say the problems were easy (and they’re not). I just said Kevin Drum is an innumerate hack (and he is).

By: Terence Hsiao

Terence Hsiao — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 03:39:01 +0000

Spending is the symptom, demographics are the problem.

By: Jeff Molby

Jeff Molby — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 01:20:58 +0000

It’s good to see your passion is still there, Brad. :-) I certainly can’t argue with your analysis…

Bonus: I learned a new word, “innumerate”.