Economy Declined as Government Spending Rose
…is merely a subset of government spending that excludes 69% of all federal spending and 20% of all state and local spending. As BEA explains in its “Primer on Government…
Read moreReporters Distort the Truth About Government Spending
…to attention). More specifically, Norris equates government spending with “real gross domestic product for the government.” However, as the BEA has explained, “Total spending by government is much larger than…
Read moreGovernment Spending on Higher Education Reaches an All-Time High
…Total government spending on higher education is at an all-time high of more than $9,000 per student per year. Government funding of higher education amounts to 84% of all spending…
Read moreAdvocates for Social Welfare Benefits Turn the Truth About Federal Spending on Its Head
…have blamed the results on decreased government spending, while neglecting to inform their audiences that such spending has been at or near record highs. Even in 2010, as federal spending…
Read moreEverything You’ve Heard About the Debt Limit is Wrong
…of $239,763 for every home in the nation. Those figures don’t account for the government’s fiscal liabilities and unfunded obligations. When these are included—as government requires in the financial statements…
Read moreDo Large National Debts Harm Economies?
…tracks a slightly less inclusive measure of government spending (called current expenditures) that dates back to 1929. By this measure, government spending consumed more of the nation’s economy during 2009-2011…
Read moreThe Average Cost of Public School Education Is 58% More Than Private School
…consumer spending on goods and services,” including all spending by “households and by nonprofit institutions serving households.” gross private domestic investment—a measure of private business spending on “structures, equipment, and…
Read moreBernie Sanders’ Education Plan is Rife With Deceit
…hides this multiplicative growth in education spending. With regard to the individual states, the latest available decade of data (2006–2016), shows changes in inflation-adjusted average spending per student ranging from…
Read moreThe “Inflation Reduction Act” Will Do Almost Nothing That Joe Manchin Says It Will
…of CBO’s estimate. Manchin’s press release decries “the severe threat of inflation and the consequences of unprecedented domestic spending,” but this bill increases spending on a host of programs detailed…
Read morePoll Reveals Voters are Uninformed About Major Issues
…taxes to spending, suppose we broke down all government spending to a per-household cost. Do you think the combined spending of federal, state and local governments amounts to more or…
Read morePoll Reveals Voters Misinformed About Key Issues
…of Republican voters, 8% of third-party voters, and 20% of undecided voters. Question 3: Now, changing the subject from taxes to spending, suppose we broke down all government spending to…
Read morePre-Election Poll: Voters Broadly Misinformed About Key Issues
…taxes to spending, suppose we broke down all government spending to a per household cost – do you think the combined spending of federal, state and local governments amounts to…
Read moreFact-Based Poll Reveals Fictions Believed by Voters
…public policy issues. The questions were designed to identify fault lines between perception and reality across the political spectrum. Among the issues addressed are government spending, the national debt, taxes,…
Read moreThe Impact of Obamacare and Ryancare on Medicare
…contradict each other. At the root of this debate are some harsh realities about government spending on healthcare. Mandatory federal healthcare programs, which are those that can spend taxpayer money…
Read moreWarren Buffett’s Fraudulent Tax Claims (Part 2)
…government spending, which is a broader measure of government’s economic footprint, averaged 22% of the economy in the 1950s versus 33% over the past ten years—a 50% increase. As the…
Read moreLeading Progressives Blame the Wrong Culprit for Rising College Costs
…reality is that inflation-adjusted government spending per college student has risen by about three times since the 1960s and is now at an all-time high. In spite of this, college…
Read moreThe National Debt Is Rising—Not Declining
…addressed through drastically reduced government spending. For example, by 1951, federal debt was already 11% lower than our current debt, and federal spending was consuming 27% less of our economy…
Read moreFederal Fiscal Burden Consumes 93% of America’s Wealth
…national debt is military spending. This accords with the reporting of media outlets that frequently blame the debt on military spending. In reality, military spending has plummeted from 53% of…
Read moreWhat the $20 Trillion National Debt Means to You
…slightly, but spending has risen more: Since 1959, the composition of federal spending has changed dramatically. Spending on social programs (like income security, healthcare, education, and housing) has risen from…
Read moreFederal Government’s 2017 Fiscal Shortfall Is 74% Worse Than Reported Budget Deficit
…Treasury and White House to produce an annual report on the “overall financial position” of the federal government. Data from this report also shows that the federal government has amassed…
Read moreFederal Fiscal Shortfall Nears $1 Million Per Household
…of the United States Government,” this 258-page publication is mandated by a federal law which requires the Treasury and White House to produce a full accounting of the government’s “overall…
Read moreFederal Fiscal Shortfall Surges Past $100 Trillion
…31st of each year. Beyond the national debt, it also includes the government’s explicit and implicit commitments. This method approximates the accounting standards that the federal government imposes on publicly…
Read moreEffects of Immigration From Impoverished Nations
…spending has blossomed. Between 1968 and 2004, total inflation-adjusted federal, state, and local government spending on means-tested welfare rose from an annual average of $442 for every person in the…
Read moreMedia Misinformation About Arming Teachers
…would be: $6.0 billion per year. 0.9% of government spending on K–12 schools. 0.1% of federal, state, and local government spending. “Weapons of War” The final media deception (covered in…
Read moreTreasury Data Reveals Federal Shortfall of $614,000 per U.S. Household
…an annual report on the “overall financial position” of the federal government. The law also requires the Government Accountability Office to audit the data, which is then published in the…
Read moreNew Treasury Data Shows Federal Shortfall of $670,000 Per U.S. Household
…produce an annual report on the “overall financial position” of the federal government. The law also requires the Government Accountability Office to audit this data, which is then published in…
Read moreAudit Reveals Federal Finances Are Far Worse Than Publicized Figures
By James D. Agresti March 3, 2014 The U.S. Treasury has just released its annual “Financial Report of the United States Government,” which provides an account of the federal government’s…
Read moreMyths about School Choice and Betsy DeVos
…the average spending per student in public schools was $13,398, or about twice as much. These figures exclude state administration spending, unfunded pension liabilities, and post-employment benefits like healthcare—all of…
Read moreCongressional Records Prove Biden’s Student Loan Cancellations Are Illegal
…taxes will suffer the consequences of this spending. That’s because the government is running massive deficits, so this money will be added to the national debt, which can manifest in…
Read moreEducation Funding and Results
…education expenses: State government administration. Unfunded pension liabilities for government employees. Post-employment non-pension benefits (like health insurance). Recent national polls reveal that Americans greatly underestimate how much money is spent…
Read morePublic School Funding Per Student Averages 80% More Than Private Schools
…student than private schools in the 1991–92 school year. Since then, DOE data shows that inflation-adjusted average spending per public school student has risen by 40%. Consistent with that DOE…
Read moreMaddow’s Tax and Deficit Doubletalk
…spending on government assistance programs, all of which serves to shrink deficits. Before going further, it is important to note that CBO’s current law projections for the federal deficit are…
Read morePublic School Teachers Are Paid Far More Than Commonly Reported
…actual spending and by choosing 2008 as a baseline—which happens to mark the highest year for education spending in the history of the U.S.—she leaves a glaringly false perception in…
Read moreHas Government Turned Us Into a Nation of Makers and Takers?
…and investments, while government transfers include “cash payments and in-kind benefits from social insurance and other government assistance programs.” The report is not fully inclusive because it does not account…
Read moreKrugman and Obama Mislead on Debts and Deficits
…investors would lose so much confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget that the government would be unable to borrow at affordable rates. In simple terms, even under…
Read moreFive Vital Facts About Obama’s Contraception Compromise
…has progressed. In such cases, an ounce of prevention improves health and reduces spending—for that individual. But when analyzing the effects of preventive care on total spending for health care,…
Read moreObama’s Plan for Tackling the Deficit
…and going back to Reagan-era tax rates are also part of the CBO’s current policy scenario. In this scenario, spending on all government functions but mandatory healthcare, Social Security, and…
Read moreAOC’s Baseless Accusation That the U.S. Is a “Brutal, Barbarian Society”
…and government benefits. In addition, the federal government has recently enacted enough Covid-19-related legislation to nearly double its regular $2.6 trillion annual spending on social benefits. This includes but is…
Read moreFive Fables About Medicare
…absolute terms, per capita healthcare spending swelled by 55 times during this period. This dramatic increase in healthcare spending took place along with a pronounced rise in third-party payments, which…
Read moreBlame for the National Debt
…growth in federal spending projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stems from the “government’s major health care programs: Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the insurance…
Read moreHow Hard and Effectively do Americans Work?
…Clinton. He wrote that “government assistance programs” provide people with “an incentive, and the means, not to work.” In recent years, spending on government assistance programs, technically called “social benefits,”…
Read moreCan We Prevent a Debt-Driven Economic Collapse Without Reforming Entitlements?
By James D. Agresti and Dustin Siggins June 15, 2012 Revised 11/8/12 If the U.S. government continues with its current tax and spending policies, children born this year will be…
Read moreThe School Funding Inequity Farce
…furthest back in time, found that “differences in spending per pupil in districts serving nonwhite and white students are very small” since at least 1972. Likewise, a study published by…
Read moreA Factual Look at Obama’s Presidency
…1960–2009: Federal Taxes and Spending Between 2009 and 2015, federal spending decreased from 25.9% of the U.S. economy to 22.5%. During the same period federal revenues increased from 15.7% to…
Read morePaul Krugman’s Claims About the Dangers of Government Debt
…and Medicaid. Consider the following contrasts in spending, taxes, and debt from the two comparative eras. After the end of World War II, federal spending dropped steeply, and for the…
Read moreDonald Trump and the Media Agree on Middle-Class Income, and They are Both Wrong
…survey data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. Nevertheless, such economic data is almost always imperfect, and CBO notes that its analysis: does not capture all government spending on social…
Read moreDebt Versus Deficit: Obama’s Bait and Switch
…of precipitating a fiscal crisis, during which investors would lose so much confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget that the government would be unable to borrow at…
Read moreFour Underused Tools to Stop School Shootings
…government spending on schools. Summary Assumptions, politics, and sentiments aside, people can quickly and inexpensively reduce the risk of school shooting deaths by: hardening the glass entryways to schools by…
Read moreSocial Ills That Plague African Americans Coincide With Leftism, Not Racism
…of the students not fluent in English and no bilingual classes. 80% of the students poor enough to qualify for free lunch. lower spending per student than the New York…
Read more2017: The Year in Facts and Falsehoods
…year for every full-time student, and private non-profit colleges are spending $52,000. College prices have been soaring for decades, but only 26% of spending by public colleges is dedicated to…
Read moreThe New York Times Regularly Publishes Falsehoods That Spur Violent Unrest and Civic Dysfunction
…Economic Perspectives. “Spending by the federal government, adjusted for inflation, has risen at a slow rate under President Obama. But that increase has been more than offset by a fall…
Read moreThe Real “Big Money” in Politics
…Although federal law prohibits foreigners from directly spending money on U.S. political campaigns, it does not bar them from owning shares in U.S. media corporations that endorse political candidates and…
Read moreThink Progress Exaggerates Child Hunger by 8,000%
…that “more than a fifth of America’s children are going hungry,” government food “programs have faced wave upon wave of funding cuts,” and “America does a slightly better job at…
Read moreAre Today’s Newborns the Luckiest Generation in U.S. History?
…Government Debt One of the surest ways to harm future generations is by running up government debt. In the words of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “the costs of federal…
Read moreMaximum Facts About the Minimum Wage
…income include the destruction of 1.4 million jobs, a slight decline in the overall economy, increased inflation, more government debt, and greater burdens on taxpayers. CBO is clear that minimum…
Read moreSocial Security Has Been Boosted, Not Looted
…Social Security Act of 1935) that all of the program’s surpluses be loaned to the federal government. Federal law compels the government to pay back this money with interest, and…
Read moreLack of Assimilation is Economically Harming Latino Immigrants and Society
…year done a favor, given a gift, or paid a bribe to a “government official in order to get services or a document that the government is supposed to provide.”…
Read moreReuters’ Definition of “Lower Income”
By James D. Agresti February 1, 2012 While describing a Congressional Budget Office report that projects government spending on healthcare programs will “more than double over the next decade,” David…
Read moreTaking Social Security Off-Budget
…government sources, or borrowing by the government in that year.” So what does it mean to take Social Security off-budget? It means that when the White House and Congress report…
Read moreThe Costs and Savings of Changing Social Security to a Personal Ownership System
…You take what’s in that [Trust] Fund, and you model it on what’s in Chile, you find with a few modest cuts in spending you get to a stable retirement…
Read moreHow Biofuel Profiteers Fleece Average Americans
…contained 19 questions dealing with voters’ knowledge of nine major issues, one of them being energy. Among the energy-related questions was this: “Without government subsidies, which of these fuels is…
Read moreCurrent National Debt Situation is the Worst in U.S. History
…recent past.” As documented below with data from the federal government, the second half of that statement is categorically false, and the national debt situation is now worse than in…
Read moreDoes the Affordable Care Act Ration Medicare?
By James D. Agresti September 7, 2012 Among 45 new government organizations created by the Affordable Care Act, one has been the most controversial by far. Called the Independent Payment…
Read moreQuestion of the Day
…Marron, former acting director of the Congressional Budget Office, “A great deal of government spending is hidden in the federal tax code in the form of deductions, credits, and other…
Read moreQuestion of the Day
…dollars in new money to fund government deficit spending, which can artificially inflate the prices of assets like stocks and real estate. This phenomenon is called “asset inflation,” and it…
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