Ryan: Spending Flat for Decades Under Our Plan
The House Budget Committee Republicans have put out this graph purporting to predict government spending as a percentage of GDP for the next 50 or so years. Unsurprisingly, they presume that spending will skyrocket under Democratic budgets as designed by Democratic presidents and congressional leaders who haven't been elected yet, but that spending will decrease under Republican governance.
This level of detail is remarkable, given that Ryan himself seems to have been unable to say how big near term deficits would be under his plan just two days ago. (Incidentally, Ryan's budget, which we've obtained pegs the 2010 deficit at just under $1 trillion.)
Interestingly, now that the Republican plan has been made into legislation, it can be analyzed by the CBO, so we'll see what they have to say about it. We've just gotten a hold of the GOP's Budget resolution (i.e. the Ryan substitute) and some supplemental information and we'll provide links to PDFs shortly.
Late update: I swapped out the original graph for one that contains a separate "projection" (read arbitrarily drawn line) based on the GOP alternative.
Josh
Matt
Eric
This Republican Budget roll-out has been so much fun. I can't wait for the CBO mark-up.
April 1, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny how the GOP plan is going to put the upper tax rate at 25%, which is It does indeed seem like they are going to embrace Hoover economics and roll back the Hoover tax cuts.
If the CBO estimated Bush's tax cuts would cost somewhere around 1.2 trillion, imagine the loss of revenue the CBO will calculate from a 10% cut in the highest bracket.
April 1, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I got my hyperlinks all crossed up. I meant to finish that first sentence with: ...which is identical to the tax rate from 1925-1932.
April 1, 2009 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
They don't have a red marker big enough for this job.
April 1, 2009 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Silly person. When, when, when will you liberals finally get it through your heads that tax cuts increase revenue. Everyone knows that. That's why we ran record surpluses throughout the Bush years.
You've also obviously missed the section detailing the extra revenue the government will reap from the sales of the flying monkeys that this plan has scheduled people to start farting in F.Y. 2023.
April 1, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
It looks like the teacher put a big red check mark for 'wrong' all over Ryan's chart
April 1, 2009 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love these kinds of charts and projections. The idea that anyone has any idea of what government spending is going to be like 4 years from now is laughable, let alone projected out 70 years!
It was a nice touch for them to create a "hockey stick" graph for Obama's budget plan. Maybe a nod to Al Gore from the Repubs?
April 1, 2009 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
You've got it all wrong. They've got God telling them what the budget will be for the next 60 years. :)
Seriously though, these are the people who ran the country over the past 25 years. A bunch of empty suits.
April 1, 2009 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Calling Republicans "empty suits" is an insult to clothing everywhere.
April 1, 2009 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aren't these the same people who insisted that their tax cut proposals would lead to increases in revenues and balanced budgets? So now after having failed miserably with that approach in the 80's and again over the last 8 years, their new proposal is...the same thing? But really, THIS TIME it's going to work.
April 1, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you trying to tell me that we didn't have record surpluses under the Bush-Cheney tax plan? Riiiiight. You liberals really think you can just make up bald-faced lies like that and have people believe it, don't you?
April 1, 2009 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget the robust job creation. A rising tide raises all yachts.
April 1, 2009 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I enjoy schadenfreude at least as much as the next person, but it really is a long-term problem for a democracy that only has two viable parties when one of them is both completely incompetent and batshit insane. When I finish laughing at the Republicans, this starts to worry me.
April 1, 2009 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I feel exactly the same way. In fact, I think the laughing time is getting shorter and shorter. That's not good.
April 1, 2009 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I noticed a fatal flaw of that chart above. The GOP budget doesn't take into account Obama being the anti-Christ.
There will be no budget after 2016 because earth as we know it will cease to exist.
April 1, 2009 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
While the Repubs are ascending to the gates of Heaven, we'll be "left behind" to clean up the mess, as usual.
April 1, 2009 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Figures.
April 1, 2009 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
What about Zephram Cochrane and his invention of warp drive in 2063? Doesn't that usher in a new era of plenty and make the nation state obsolete? That would certainly skew Ryan's numbers, wouldn't it?
April 1, 2009 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find it very bizarre that they would roll out their numbers on April Fool's Day. They really are tone deaf. Too funny. You would think they would have bachmann explaining the "plan" to complete the insanity.
April 1, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's "flat" as in flat frequency response, flat ocean, flat top haircut.
Republicans' "flat" is as in flat tire.
April 1, 2009 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink