Thursday, April 28, 2005

Bush is Right About Something

43 minutes into tonight's press conference President Bush said that "in 2027 social security will spend $200,000,000,000 more a year than it takes in", and that this was a serious problem. I didn't fact check that and I know that these are just projections at this point but I agree, a $200,000,000,000 deficit is a serious problem.

In the year 2000 the US Federal Government had a $236,000,000,000 surplus. The current projection for 2005 is a $427,000,000,000 deficit. That's a $662,000,000,000 change in 5 years. Now people argue about the deficit as a percentage of GDP or say that it's not the president's fault but the recession's; fine, whatever. My point is, if the president is so concerned about a $200,000,000,000 problem 22 years from now, why isn't he more concerned with a $427,000,000,000 problem today? A problem which popped up in the last 5 years without much warning. Bush's goal is to merely half that deficit by 2009. Oh, and fixing it completely wouldn't help the $7,800,000,000,000 debt we currently owe.

Any why are the democrats so inept at raising it as an issue?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My point is, if the president is so concerned about a $200,000,000,000 problem 22 years from now, why isn't he more concerned with a $427,000,000,000 problem today?

To make the numbers comparable, it's necessary to convert the future expense to a present value. Then, the reality is even more stark than Howard's original post.

Assuming a 5%/yr interest rate and continuous time, it's comparing a $427b problem against a $67b problem.

Maybe our financial planning is fooling the cheerleaders over at www.freerepublic.com, but we're sure not fooling the world's cynical bond and FX traders.

Dave W