Over at Economics21, James Capretta assessed the American economy through a Mid-Year Update.
Capretta’s assessment relied on Office of Management and Budget projections:
The numbers are eye-popping. The budget deficit in 2010 is expected to set a record at $1.471 trillion – or 10% of GDP. In 2011, the administration projects the deficit will again top $1.4 trillion. From 2010 to 2020, the Obama budget plan would run up a cumulative deficit of nearly $10 trillion, and the nation’s debt would reach $18.5 trillion in 2020, up from $5.8 trillion at the end of 2008.
Even more ominous for the president is the economic forecast. It shows unemployment remaining at over 8% through the 2012 presidential re-election campaign, despite the assumption that relatively normal economic growth would have been underway for more than two years by then.
The primary problem is quite plainly out of control federal spending. In 2008, total federal outlays were about $2.9 trillion. President Obama wants to add $1 trillion to that total in 2011, or about a 33% expansion of governmental activity in just three years.
Capretta’s article appeared in July; a month later, the economic outlook has grown worse. It’s possible to spend even more (although politically difficult to swing), but if all this hasn’t been enough, a prudent team might consider a different approach, entirely.
There’s growing support for a different approach, but it’s worth noting that there were more than a few Republicans in Congress, and at the state and local level, who were for big spending (2006-08) until they were against it (2009-10). They paved the path on which others walked.
One should be unsympathetic to Republicans of this ilk; they spent drunkenly to assure their own political control, lost that gambit, and now insist they’re sober and prudent again. These big-spending conservatives, with their proud talk about government-business partnerships, pushed projects that were unsound fiscally and politically.
All that pork wasn’t for the public’s benefit, but for their own. Having discarded their principles, they thought they could substitute patronage, pork, influence over business, and an overweening, proud declaration of their own importance.
Instead, they’ve nothing good left — they cast aside principle, gained nothing for America through their schemes, and are seen now (correctly) as bloated panderers by both left and right.
They’ve not the credibility to complain about the current administration, as they were scouts for, and pioneers of, the current federal approach.