Fed. Spending: Even Cavemen Could Understand

Obama and the Democrats continue to ignore spending "cuts" in the current budget debate related to avoiding the "fiscal cliff".   (Remember "cuts" in Washington are only reductions in "planned increases").

President Obama's proposed tax increases on the top 2% of earners would fund the federal government for about eight days.

Democrats are exceedingly unserious about addressing the most serious budgetary issue of the day: spending.   Pretty much every serious person in this nation admits that entitlement spending trajectory now and in the future is unsustainable.  But you can see below, that's it's not only entitlement spending that's out of control.  It's virtually every major budget category that is out of control!

There continues to be no adult in charge in Washington.  Obama is not, and never has been, up to the task of leading the nation, tackling any serious problem, nor negotiating with anybody.  Pro-growth policies are the only way out of our budget morass.

Mike Shedlock at Global Economic Analysis has done a great job at summarizing the latest decade of government spending increases.   We may have a temporary revenue problem due to the "great recession" of the past few years, but we have a worse spending problem.   Here's his accounting of spending by various government departments

Here's a handy table from his latest blog:  Congressional Spending Problem in Easy To Understand Format:

Department	2000	2012 estimate	Percentage Increase
Legislative Branch	2,871	5,253	82.97
Judicial Branch	4,057	7,581	86.86
Department of Agriculture	75,071	150,680	100.72
Department of Commerce	7,788	11,326	45.43
Department of Defense--Military Programs	281,028	688,254	144.91
Department of Education	33,476	98,467	194.14
Department of Energy	14,971	38,998	160.49
Department of Health and Human Services	382,311	871,836	128.04
Department of Homeland Security	13,159	60,443	359.33
Department of Housing and Urban Development	30,781	56,788	84.49
Department of the Interior	7,998	11,241	40.55
Department of Justice	16,846	34,556	105.13
Department of Labor	31,873	127,157	298.95
Department of State	6,687	29,937	347.69
Department of Transportation	41,555	84,135	102.47
Department of the Treasury	390,524	579,618	48.42
Department of Veterans Affairs	47,044	129,186	174.61
Corps of Engineers--Civil Works	4,229	9,184	117.17
Other Defense Civil Programs	32,801	51,991	58.50
Environmental Protection Agency	7,223	9,352	29.48
Executive Office of the President	283	414	46.29
General Services Administration	74	1,083	1363.51
International Assistance Programs	12,087	25,554	111.42
National Aeronautics and Space Administration	13,428	17,637	31.34
National Science Foundation	3,448	8,281	140.17
Office of Personnel Management	48,655	87,462	79.76
Small Business Administration	-421	3,157
Social Security Administration (On-Budget)	45,121	188,552	317.88
Social Security Administration (Off-Budget)	396,169	638,509	61.17
Other Independent Agencies (On-Budget)	8,803	53,199	504.33
Other Independent Agencies (Off-Budget)	2,029	-5,120
Allowances	..........	125
Undistributed Offsetting Receipts	-173,019	-279,289	61.42
(On-budget)	-105,586	-151,066	43.07
(Off-budget)	-67,433	-128,223	90.15
Total outlays	1,788,950	3,795,547	112.17

Mike summarizes the situation for Defense, Medicare and Medicaid:

Medicare 2000: 200,588
Medicare 2012: 480,202

Medicaid 2000: 117,744
Medicaid 2012: 283,597

Medicare spending is up 139%
Medicaid spending is up 140%

When you add up Homeland Security, Defense and Veteran's Affairs here's the tally:

2000 Total (281,028 + 13,159 + 47,044) = 341,231
2012 Total (688,254 + 60,443 + 129,186) = 877,883
Defense Spending Percentage Increased 157%

From Senator Rand Paul, (R, KY), says in a recent article regarding the fiscal cliff 'discussions',

Is it any wonder people are fed up with their government? The president announces we have no time for spending reforms, but when the deadline passes I predict not one committee will step into the breach to begin the process of reform.

Why? Because Democratic leadership still insists that Social Security and Medicare are just fine. Meanwhile, Social Security actuaries tell us that Social Security this year will spend $165 billion more than it receives. Medicare will spend $3 for every $1 it collects. Yet, the president says he doesn't have time for entitlement reform.

Rolling Back Federal Spending to 2008 Levels Balances Today's Budget

From the same article from Rand Paul,

Estimated revenue for 2013 is $2.9 trillion if the Bush tax cuts expire. Our 2012 revenues were $2.4 trillion, which included all of the Bush tax cut regime. The Bush tax cuts would only make a difference of $500 billion this year — about one third of our entire deficit — but would also further harm our economy due to the job market decline that always accompanies any rise in taxes. History has proved this point time and again.

But if we spent only at 2008 levels combined with the revenues of 2012, next year we would have a deficit as small as $89 billion. An $89 billion deficit would represent less than 1% of GDP. The 2012 deficit was as high as 7.3% of GDP.

Can it be any clearer??   Even a caveman could understand it.  Why aren't the politicians in Washington doing anything about the SPENDING problem??