It took me a week, but I finally took a look at the Trump budget on my special federal budget feature on usgovernmentspending.com.
The table below shows budgeted outlays for federal spending for the next six years, starting with the current fiscal year, FY 2018.
Do you see what is going on? Pensions, health care are steady as she goes. Yay seniors! Defense shows a minor increase. Education and Welfare show minor decreases. Transportation is going to take a hit. Yay bullet trains to nowhere!
But look at Other Spending. It's going to be reduced by 90 percent! But what is it? Well the big numbers are Mortgage Credit at -$35 billlionish, which I assume is income from Fannie and Freddie the mortgage giants, and an innocuous item called "Adjustment for Budget Control Act Caps (Non-Security)" that goes from zero in FY18 to -$60 billion by FY23. Yeah. I don't have a clue what that is, but I am sure it is some kind of shenanigans.
Hey, but look at Interest. It is going to double from $310 billion in FY18 to $618 in FY23.
But the bottom line is this. Pensions, i.e., Social Security, and Health Care, i.e., Medicare/Medicaid, are the only things that matter, because they amount to over $1 trillion a year and they are going to continue going up.
Everything else, the stuff that people scream about from year to year, is peanuts.
But nobody is proposing to do anything about Social Security and Medicare. Because we baby boomers insist. Grandpa says that he already paid in to Social Security; grandma says they'd better not touch "my" Medicare.
But here is my lament. With the $10 trillion we added to the national debt after the generational financial crash in 2008 we coulda privatized Social Security. Just saying. And you know what that would have done? It would have created trillions in private wealth for ordinary people. Instead of just getting a check from the government they would have their own accounts at Vanguard and Fidelity, and would be passing a lot of that money on to their children.
As the song says: "Ain't it all a blooming shame."
The table below shows budgeted outlays for federal spending for the next six years, starting with the current fiscal year, FY 2018.
| Year $ billions | FY 2018 Outlays | FY 2019 Outlays | FY 2020 Outlays | FY 2021 Outlays | FY 2022 Outlays | FY 2023 Outlays | |
| Pensions | 1,044.5 | 1,107.5 | 1,181.7 | 1,251.4 | 1,331.5 | 1,404.4 | |
| Health Care | 1,182.4 | 1,225.3 | 1,291.6 | 1,316.4 | 1,423.8 | 1,467.8 | |
| Education | 111.6 | 112.5 | 104.5 | 96.8 | 98.2 | 95.9 | |
| Defense | 867.8 | 949.9 | 987.1 | 995.5 | 1,022.3 | 1,030.3 | |
| Welfare | 354.0 | 347.9 | 345.7 | 351.1 | 363.0 | 366.6 | |
| Protection | 42.3 | 42.3 | 44.2 | 45.3 | 46.2 | 47.6 | |
| Transportation | 94.4 | 94.0 | 93.3 | 92.4 | 69.4 | 66.8 | |
| General Government | 55.2 | 53.8 | 53.0 | 50.9 | 51.8 | 50.8 | |
| Other Spending | 110.6 | 110.1 | 48.0 | 43.9 | 22.6 | 15.7 | |
| Interest | 310.3 | 363.4 | 446.6 | 510.4 | 567.7 | 618.5 | |
| Total Spending | 4,173.0 | 4,406.7 | 4,595.9 | 4,754.1 | 4,996.5 | 5,164.6 |
Do you see what is going on? Pensions, health care are steady as she goes. Yay seniors! Defense shows a minor increase. Education and Welfare show minor decreases. Transportation is going to take a hit. Yay bullet trains to nowhere!
But look at Other Spending. It's going to be reduced by 90 percent! But what is it? Well the big numbers are Mortgage Credit at -$35 billlionish, which I assume is income from Fannie and Freddie the mortgage giants, and an innocuous item called "Adjustment for Budget Control Act Caps (Non-Security)" that goes from zero in FY18 to -$60 billion by FY23. Yeah. I don't have a clue what that is, but I am sure it is some kind of shenanigans.
Hey, but look at Interest. It is going to double from $310 billion in FY18 to $618 in FY23.
But the bottom line is this. Pensions, i.e., Social Security, and Health Care, i.e., Medicare/Medicaid, are the only things that matter, because they amount to over $1 trillion a year and they are going to continue going up.
Everything else, the stuff that people scream about from year to year, is peanuts.
But nobody is proposing to do anything about Social Security and Medicare. Because we baby boomers insist. Grandpa says that he already paid in to Social Security; grandma says they'd better not touch "my" Medicare.
But here is my lament. With the $10 trillion we added to the national debt after the generational financial crash in 2008 we coulda privatized Social Security. Just saying. And you know what that would have done? It would have created trillions in private wealth for ordinary people. Instead of just getting a check from the government they would have their own accounts at Vanguard and Fidelity, and would be passing a lot of that money on to their children.
As the song says: "Ain't it all a blooming shame."
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