Posted on 03/11/2025 7:24:08 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The next time you hear someone complaining that DOGE is “slashing” federal spending or “dismantling” the government, pay close attention. There will almost certainly be an important fact left out: The gargantuan federal deficit.
Every day brings a new sob story about how someone is being hurt by Elon Musk’s chainsaw because some federal program is being shut down, or because a precious federal job has been axed.
Never in any of these is any context provided. And in this case, context is everything.
By the time President Donald Trump took office – four months into the new fiscal year (which started last October), the federal government was already $840 billion in the red. That’s a 58% increase from the prior year.
If all goes well, the deficit for this year will total $1.9 trillion, according to the Treasury Department, which would be the third annual increase.
The result is that the national debt is now $37 trillion – more than double what it was a decade ago. Interest on the debt took off like a rocket under Joe Biden.
None of this is sustainable.
And if anyone suggests to you that Trump’s 2017 tax cuts are to blame, they aren’t.
This year, revenues will equal 18.7% of the nation’s GDP. That’s well above the postwar average of 17.2% – and it is a level that has been topped only seven times in the past 80 years.
Too much spending, not too little taxation, is the problem.
This year, federal spending is on course to equal 25% of GDP, which is significantly higher than the 20% postwar average, and a level topped only twice since World War II – (both times because of massive COVID spending).
Not all of this is Joe Biden’s fault. The federal government has not run a balanced budget since 2001. Ten of the past 20 years have seen annual deficits above $1 trillion. Runaway entitlements are making it nearly impossible to balance the budget. And Republicans have often proved just as eager as Democrats to spend money we don’t have.
But Biden made everything much, much worse.
Why is this context always missing from all those “slashing” stories?
Because Democrats and the press don’t want the public to know just how dire the nation’s fiscal situation is. The public is already generally supportive of DOGE’s efforts to eliminate waste. But if it knew just how bad things were, support for deep spending cuts would only increase.
The same is true for Medicaid. Democrats are howling about proposals to cut Medicaid spending by $800 billion – over 10 years.
What’s never mentioned is the fact that Medicaid spending shot up 68% over the past decade. If the government simply returned to what Medicaid spent the year Biden took office, it would save almost $700 billion over the next decade.
Trump has promised to drain the swamp. He’s off to a fast start. But it will take much more than a few months of high-profile cancellations of grants and firings to get the budget under control. The Golden Age might be upon us, but it will be smothered in its crib if Democrats, weak-kneed Republicans, and a corrupt media keep playing the same games that got us into this mess in the first place.
It is not sustainable and much reduction in spending will have to be done or our financial system will collapse. The sooner we start cutting the less painful it will be.
Exactly.
I look at the federal debt clock everyday and not one second has it gone down. It’d be helpful if they took these saving DOGE is doing and put it on the debt. Even a little change downward would excite people. What are they doing with these hundreds of billions in savings?
It’s sustainable.
Just print lots more money, dilute the face value of the creditors of our debt. Easy.
The only hard part is hyper-inflation, but hay, it’s just the lower and middle classes who will be hurt the most. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The other thing that is missing from every story about DOGE slashing spending is the fact that the Republicans want to spend MORE money next year than we did last year.
It’s all kabuki theater.
There is a nice chart in there that shows what the stolen presidency added to the debt. It may not be possible to even cut this away, which may have been the point.
Big Balls is the missing item. There needs to be a mention of him.
DOGE isn’t actually saving much, if anything. It’s identifying programs from which future funds may be withheld. We are so far in debt I’m certain that the problem won’t be solved in my lifetime.
I get so frustrated with the media when they say trump added more to the debt then every president put together. Such lies.
For decades, the average tax payer has been brutalized, required to turn over the profits of their efforts to line the pockets of the congress critters and their cronies under the aegis of “social welfare”.
I haven’t seen a single heart-wrenching story about this!
To the Liberal/RINO public, to paraphrase the Soviets, a $2000 deficit is a tragedy. A $2 trillion deficit is a statistic.
They are finding more than just savings. The fraud won’t reduce to debt but it will keep it from going forward. Even if we find and prosecute the fraudsters and confiscate what is left it won’t change the debt. What will help is cutting costs and lowering interest rates and growing the economy.
It’s often been mentioned that Social Security is a Ponzi, or pyramid, scheme. It tends to fall apart (or take endless subsidies) as the population ages. That reasoning may apply to Medicare and Medicaid also.
This article points the finger at Medicaid. It might be an easier target, from a political, moral, and logical standpoint. Still, one can expect a big fight.
Primary fact missing is DOGE can only find crap and advise scrapping it to departments and agencies shotcallers
Media acts like he has fiscal power
************
George Washington warned us about the accumulation of debt. And foreign entanglements too, by the way.
Media lying to protect their friends as usual.
“The other thing that is missing from every story about DOGE slashing spending is the fact that the Republicans want to spend MORE money next year than we did last year.”
Not true. They are committed to passing Trump’s budget.
Inflation.
Inflation is both the consequence but also tool used by government to unburden itself of this debt.
Inflation and adding to the money supply, while the GDP expands numerically (even if there is little or no real growth) makes the debt owed by government less.
It’s essentially lying and stealing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.