[kabar]

Does CBO show the year to year increases in spending so we can see where the additional 1 trillion is being spent. My understanding is while there were some jumps in entitlements; the biggie was discrectionary (stimulus) and that Obama wants to continue spending the equavlent amount of discrectionary stimulus.

There are other data. The stimulus money is long gone. The Ryan FY-2012 budget resolution passed by the House returns non-security discretionary spending vack to 2008 levels. Ryan's budget calls for a $3.6 trillion budget outlays in FY-2011 and 3.5 trillion in FY-2012 (page 62).

As you can see, even the Ryan budget runs deficits out to 2021 and adds $4 trillion to the publicly held debt. During that timeframe the federal budget goes from 24.1% of of GDP to 19.9%.

The entitlement programs are driving the size of our budget and the deficits. 10,000 people a day are retiring and will continue to do so for the next 20 years. By 2030, one in five residents of this country will be 65 or older, twice what it is now. As a result SS and Medicare and Medicaid costs will increase significantly just due to the numbers and there is no doubt that medical costs will increase faster than inflation during that same time frame. These programs will consume the entire federal budget if they are not reformed. And to further complicate matters there will be just two workers for every retiree in 2030, down from the current 3.3 and 16 to one ratio in 1950. The Ponzi schemes are hitting tghe wall.

The growth of the economy will help reduce the current shortfall, but 60% of the budget is tied to the entitlement programs and other mandatory expenditures. And if interest costs go up as they must eventually, our debt servicing costs will skyrocket as well. Some estimate that within 10 years, the annual debt servicing costs will approach $1 trillion.

[Son House]

The Democrats are making the debt ceiling talks so complicating less people understand it and buy into their panic

[tomd2]

Agreed that the growth of entitlements is what will “kill” us in the future.

What I having been trying to get my head around is Bush left with a 350B deficit. Obama had the stimulus and a big jump in spending for a 1.5T deficit his first year. This 1.5T deficit continued his second year which is what brings us to the debt ceiling now. O wants to continue the 1.5T deficit for as far as can be seen even after the economy revives.

While the shortfall of revenue is due to the economy, I am looking for a comparison of spending between 2008 to 2010. I looked on Heritage’s site but they have their charts back to 1960’s. http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/contents