Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Entitlement Avalanche

Few people have a good feel for the nature of the federal budget. The picture painted by the graphic Spending Categories from 2008 has not changed significantly. Death & Taxes 2009 is also pretty nifty.

The problem isn't the earmarks. The problem isn't the bailout. The big problem is the way the numbers are going to change in the coming years. Paul Krugman's piece for the NY Times, Entitlements on the Back of an Envelope is a very succinct description of the problem. The big three entitlement programs are going to explode while the number of people paying taxes to support that growth is going to shrink. This is a major problem.

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