PrintFebruary 15, 2009
The Real State of the Union
It is almost State of the Union time. So what is the real state of our union's finances, specifically our federal budget? Are we going to hell in a hand basket? Or do we have nothing to fear but fear itself? I crunch the numbers so you don't have to.For fair comparisons over time, I provide numbers as a percentage of our economy, specifically Gross Domestic Product.The Past. Let's start with what we know: the past. Below is a breakdown for federal spending in 2007, as a percent of GDP, in which total outlays were exactly 20% of GDP . (State and local government spending was another 17.4% of GDP, bringing our total government spending to 37.4% of GDP, above that of Switzerland, Australia and Ireland, but slightly below the OECD average of 40.4%.)Retirement/disability 5.11Medicare/Health 4.70National...(Read Full Article)
