When politicians talk about the budget most of us listen with the best intentions until the caveats and accounting tricks conflate into a convoluted and polluted stream of rhetoric. For example, we learn that when politicians talk about a 5% cut in spending what that really mean is NOT that they are reducing spending by 5%, as those of us operating with a finite budget would assume, rather, they mean they are slowing the rise in spending by 5%. In fact, under a Congressional or Presidential 5% cut, spending could actually be rising by 5% or 10%. A cut is not a cut is often an increase. Huh?
Thankfully, the good folks at The Heritage Foundation have set out to explain the budget in pictures. Making the numbers accessible to us regular folks. We begin with the rate of growth of government spending versus the rate of growth of the median income of the Americans. It doesn't take a mathematician to deduce that the rate of growth of government is unsustainable. Since government is funded primarily by taxes paid by its citizens we can surmise that a growth rate in the income of those citizens of 27% over the last 39 years when compared to federal government spending growth of 299% is an equation for disaster.
And these levels of spending do not include the upcoming trillion dollar cost of Obamacare.
If is time to stop politicizing America's future and get serious about spending. The president submits his budget today. He has the opportunity to lead. Let's hope he does.
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