Gummint Spending - The *ONLY* problem is Health Care
Seriously. Not Social Security. Not Defense. Not the DMV. Not the EPA. Not whatever other thing your average Wingnut On the Street is busy raving about. Health care and only health care. How do I know this? Well, the CBO has a new white-paper out called Options for Deficit Reduction , and it has a bunch of cool stuff in it. But, by far the coolest part is on page 23, on an extremely non-imaginatively titled chart called (I kid you not) " Components of Non-Interest Spending Under the Extended Alternative Fiscal Scenario ". I know, I know, gorgeous bureaucratise, right? I'll let Ezra Klein translate it for you These graphs are built atop what’s called “the current policy” baseline. The current policy baseline assumes nothing changes. We don’t pass any new laws. We don’t follow through on the hard parts — like the cost controls in the Affordable Care Act — of any of the laws we’ve already passed. We don’t raise taxes. And the result? The charts below ...