I got busy yesterday and forgot to bring up and link to an Associated Press story in the Saturday Journal Gazette that irritated the hell out of me. It was basically a soft-pedaling of the country's growing debt and an aplogy for all the people who have contributed to it. Oh, and along the way, the writer made sure to get in a few digs at the Republican presidential candidates and their simple-minded math that makes them a-skeert of our itty-bitty government borrowing:
The number at the heart of the battle cry of the Republicans and their tea party allies — that federal spending has risen to an alarming 25 percent of the economy — is skewed by recession dynamics.
In recessions, federal spending always goes up and tax revenues go down. And the economy contracts in recessions, shrinking the gross domestic product, which is the total output of goods and services and the broadest measure of the economy's health.
[. . .]
While spending's share of the GDP might be at a post-World War II high, tax revenues have fallen to 14.4 percent of the index, the lowest since 1950.
This disparity between what comes in and what goes out plays into the Republican argument about runaway spending.
But it also reflects the mathematical reality that during recessions, tax revenues go down sharply because people and companies make less money and so pay less in taxes. Federal spending goes up, even before stimulus programs, with an increasing demand for government help from food stamps and unemployment compensation and other safety-net programs.
At the same time, the negative economic growth associated with recessions lowers the GDP number on the bottom of the equation, further boosting the ratio of spending to GDP.
Nothing to see here, tea party panic-mongers; move it along, move it along.
Things slow down in a recession? People need more but govenment has less? Well, golllllleeeee, who'd have guessed? Is it OK if I look at the raw numbers and remain just a little alarmed that the national debt has increased $4 trillion under President Obama, the most rapid increase under any president, and that the debt is growing about $3 million a minute -- that's debt increase, not just spending increase.
