The political crisis caused by the decline in discretionary spending
by David Atkins
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a fantastic chart of non-interest federal spending today. As you might have known if you don’t consume conservative media, government spending on things non-Medicare and non-Social Security expenses is decreasing:
As they say:
If we continue current policies, federal spending outside of interest payments on the debt is projected to decline in the decade ahead as the economy recovers. In fact, this spending (which analysts call “primary outlays”) has already fallen from 23.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009 — at the bottom of the recession — to a projected 20.2 percent of GDP in 2013. It is projected to fall further, to 19.5 percent of GDP or lower in the latter part of this decade.
While total federal spending will remain high throughout the coming decade under current policies, that’s mostly because of a marked increase in interest payments. In particular, as the economy recovers, interest rates will also rise, simultaneously increasing the interest we must pay on any given amount of debt.
Total non-interest spending outside of Social Security and Medicare — two programs whose costs are driven up by the aging of the population and the rise in health care costs throughout the U.S. health care system — will fall well below its 50-year historical average in the decade ahead.
This data, by the way, doesn’t just make for good progressive talking points on the budget. It also creates crucial political and strategic problems for both parties.
The core conservative demographic at this point is seniors. Without the senior vote, the Republican Party would be in danger of disappearance outside the deep south. But there just isn’t a lot of budget to cut much further without slashing either the military or programs that seniors depend on. They could (and do) go after certain popular programs like education, food stamps and Medicaid, but doing so only hastens their demographic demise among minorities and young adults. Not a lot of good options here for Republicans.
Democrats, meanwhile, face the opposite problem. Almost the entire progressive establishment is digging in its heels to protect Medicare and Social Security from the “Grand Bargain.” That’s a good thing, of course, but also leaves younger adults in the cold as discretionary non-defense spending only accounts for less than a paltry one-fifth of the federal budget.
Think about that for a moment. When progressives make arguments about all the great things government does, the go-to arguments are about street lights, roads, fire, police, education, public health, the space program, medical research, pollution control, Wall Street regulation. The federal government spends less than 20% of its budget on all these things combined. Sometimes that’s because they’re paid out of state and local coffers, but mostly it’s that the military, Medicare and Social Security take up so much of the budget.
Now, that’s fine and very important. Most of us will reach age 65, one hopes, and terrible economic conditions mean that most of us will be desperate for that lifeline when we reach that point. But I’m 32 years old. I will have eight more presidential cycles in my lifetime before I reach the age of 65. How many more grand bargains will have to be fought in the meantime? Are progressives my age (to say nothing of those just reaching adulthood) supposed to spend our organizing and waking hours fighting like the dickens for programs that we may or may not benefit from some 30 or 40 years down the road?
If Democrats continue to give away the store on discretionary spending on younger adults that invests in America’s future in order to hold a Maginot line on Medicare and Social Security programs they may or may not live to see one day, why should younger voters care about which political party holds the reins?
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