Reply #11: but spending is not the problem, like this article implies

[hfojvt]

In the 1960s, real spending by the Federal Government rose by 57%. The debt rose by 31%, but it was only 381 billion by 1970. In the 1970s, spending rose by 42% and the debt grew by 139%, but it was still only 909 billion in 1980. In the 1980s, spending grew by 35.3% and the debt grew by 253%!! So, in table form

decade - SG - DG - DA (Spending Growth,Debt Growth, Dollars Added)
1960s - 57% - 31% - 90.4
1970s - 42% - 139% - 528.1
1980s - 35% - 252% - 2,297.3
1990s - 12.5% - 75.6% - 2,422.4
BY - 26.5% - 59% - 3,322 (Bush Years 2000 - 2007)

What happened? Look at income taxes. In the 1960s, income tax revenues grew by 122%. In the 1970s by 170%, and in the 1980s by only 91%. In 1970, income tax revenues were 8.7% of GDP. In 1980, they were 8.75%. By 1983, thanks to Reagan's tax cuts, they had dropped to 8.17% and to 7.59% in 1984 and 7.93% in 1985.

This may not seem like a big deal, the difference between 8.75% and 8.17% or even 7.59%, but our GDP is huge and thus .5% of our GDP is huge too. Figuring the difference between 8.75% and the actual for each year plus 4% interest, the difference comes to $824 billion between 1983 and 1997 when income taxes finally rose to 8.88% of GDP. Doing the same for the Bush years 2002-2007, the difference is $840 billion.

One problem may be that Iraq war expenses are not included in the numbers I have, which would make spending increases larger, but still the bigger problem was that revenues only grew in the seven years by 5.1% in real terms.

The other thing driving the debt is demographics. FICA revenues - FICA expenses get added to the debt and those surpluses plus interest are a big part of our debt total now.

Still, it has not primarily been spending that got us into this debt.