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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs
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To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (45251)8/26/2010 2:07:37 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 71588
 
"Deficit without these factors" is at best a misleading point. (At best, even if the actual data is accurate, but I don't think the estimates of reduction in revenue due to the tax cuts in that chart is accurate, as the positive economic effects of tax cuts are being ignored)

If the deficit is $1tril, and factors A and B each contributed $500bil to increasing the deficit, while C and D each contributed $750bil, and you dislike A and B, you can say "without A and B the deficit would be $0", which is true, but C and D are really more to blame.

Moving from hypothetical factors only denominated by letters, to the real world - The wars and the tax cuts where (even combined) much smaller as factors than the non-war spending increases. That's even true if you add in non-war military spending increases.

In other words the deficit was primarily the result of non-defense spending increases.

Moving to the future rather than the past, relies on speculation and estimates rather than concrete facts but - Iraq is winding down. Afghanistan will eventually wind down, and is fairly unlikely to explode upwards in cost. The non-war military spending increases are likely to slow down. In the mean time entitlements keep growing at a good clip, and non-military, non-entitlement spending is also likely to grow. So almost certainly non-military spending will be the biggest force going forward to increase budget deficits.
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