I was asked to volunteer to work for Obama

[Linus Van Pelt]

So she got "the lecture" about the fiscal ticking time bomb. Yes, I did vote for him, but not this time. This time I will be voting for Mittens. Why she asked? Because he has been AWOL on entitlements, gave the Bowles commission the finger, and the stimulus sucked, and more stimulus that he wants sucks even more, and now he has gone populist. I lay on her my rap that secular centrist socially rather liberal upper middle types I suspect will be abandoning Obama in droves, and that Obama will need to make it up with Hispanics or somebody.

First, as the above chart using nonpartisan Commerce Department data shows, Obama is the only recent president under whom government spending has shrunk. This is because the increase in federal spending has been smaller than the decrease in state spending. Arguably, the overall size of the public sector is what matters more from a macroeconomic perspective; the public sector as a whole has been implementing austerity rather than stimulus.

Second, though, again re the above chart, even if we're assessing the different levels of government on their own, it remains the case that under Obama, federal nonmilitary spending has grown more slowly than the private sector contribution to GDP. In this sense the trajectory of federal nonmilitary spending is sustainable. Now, it's not completely obvious that this will continue, since the American system of having basically a European-style welfare state for those 65 and above makes it unusually sensitive to the percentage of the population who are seniors, but that would take a reversal of the current trend. And even if that does occur, it remains the case that...

third, public spending as a % of GDP is lower in the US than in many central and northern European countries that have lower public debt and whose economies are broadly successful when they don't enter into hasty currency-union schemes with weaker economies. This suggests, broadly, that the US could easily afford to fund its current (quite limited) entitlement regime in a fiscally sustainable way with increases in taxation.

I remain unconvinced that the idea that entitlement spending growth is threatening the country's economic health is well grounded in an accurate assessment of the state of the budget.

[Linus Van Pelt]

The thing is that Republicans don't want to raise taxes. They dont want revenue to go up to 18% of GDP as it has been historically let alone more than that. Of course spending would still need to be cut, but raising taxes a good amount with spending cuts can lead to a balanced budget when the economy picks up. To be fair it's not like Democrats are that keen on spending cuts but it's not like any of them have signed a childish pledge not to do it.....

Well of course. But if that's really what's driving things, which it is, don't tell us that it's just a matter of spending being on some kind of unaffordable upward trajectory, which it isn't.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Hi Torie - sorry, I didn't mean to just vanish into the kelp without a response, but I've been very busy at work the past little while, including a bunch of travel around the state. (And this despite not being involved on either side's election campaign! )

First, to answer your immediate question, the chart I posted was from this New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/05/business/economy/government-is-getting-smaller-in-the-us-off-the-charts.html

But as to the broader context you were discussing, I definitely don't think that everything is ok, budget-wise, because this is just about the spending side, and of course the rate of spending increase must be distinguished from the rate of debt increase, which depends on the difference between spending and revenue. Certainly the federal debt is very large and is increasing fast, and this isn't good. I do disagree with you strongly about what should be done about this; I have looked at the same CBO projections Paul Ryan is using, and my layman's sense is that the country could maintain the current medical entitlement regime even as the boomers age just with an increase in taxation of a few % of GDP that would leave things well in line with levels in many economically successful European nations. But we can agree, at least, that the debt is growing too fast, and something needs to change about it.