You might not be shocked to learn that our addiction to profligacy has quadrupled government spending at all levels since just 1970, the year after I was born. But even I was shocked to learn that spending has quadrupled per person, and, yes, that's in inflation-adjusted dollars.
The good news is that taxes, as a share of our gross domestic product, haven't actually increased all that much overall. That's because we've been smart enough to stick most of that extra spending on the national Visa card that will hobble our kids and their kids and so on for generations to come.
We are so screwed.
Washington's Office of Management and Budget produced one of those eye-popping charts last year that, for whatever reason, came across my social media radar this morning.
That 2020 peak was because of all the "relief" spending made necessary by the stupid and unnecessary COVID lockdowns. What looks like a slow return to sanity over 2021-2022 doesn't account for the massive spending hikes baked into the federal budget by Presidentish Joe Biden's legislative IED of fiscal recklessness: the American Rescue Plan Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and various illegal student loan "forgiveness" measures.
Washington, I should add, is home to the same group of well-intentioned (and not-so-well-intentioned) idiots who won't stop prattling on about "sustainability."
Do you feel like you're getting four times more value than you got in 1970? Because I sure don't.
So where does the money go? It doesn't go to defense, at least not like it used to.
Ronald Reagan's Cold War-winning defense buildup peaked at 5.7% of GDP in 1985 and would have been a bargain at twice the price. How often do you get to leave an existential rival on "the ash heap of history" without firing a shot? Defense spending bottomed out at 2.7% in 1999 when President Bill Clinton was busy screwing us out of our dominant position (among other things) with reductions in force that were dangerously big and budgets that hollowed out our defense production capability.
Even during our long misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense spending never rose above 4.5% of GDP — and only in one year, 2010. Total defense spending — yes, including Ukraine — has been on a downward glide path ever since, shrinking back down to that 1999 low of 2.7% this year. And unless President-elect Donald Trump turns things around, defense is going to do nothing but shrink further.
I'm not saying we're spending our money well on defense. So much of what we buy is overpriced, late, or devoted to Woke nonsense that harms our national security. But I am saying that if you're looking for the $27,679 culprit, you'll have to look elsewhere because the last time defense budgets were this small, Japan and Germany rolled the dice on war with the United States — and came uncomfortably close to pulling it off.
Most of the quadrupling comes from entitlement spending — with considerable assists from education and interest payments — and, since I'm feeling blunt almost to the point of rudeness today, anyone who uses the word "entitlement" earnestly is a fool.
Just the interest on our $36 trillion debt is almost equal to the amount Washington collects each year in the payroll taxes that pay for entitlements. So we'll get what Washington can afford to give us — and when the Other People's Money runs out, it runs out.
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