You already know this—don’t you?—but just to refresh your memories, here’s the latest projection of the federal deficit from the Congressional Budget Office. As you can see, for the entire next decade CBO figures that the deficit will be running at a very manageable 3 percent of GDP, right in line with historical averages. Be sure to show this to all your friends who are consumed with deficit hysteria. There’s really not much reason to panic about this.
Now, CBO’s forecast doesn’t take into account future booms or busts in the economy, since they can’t predict those. And as the chart makes crystal clear, that’s what causes big changes in the deficit. It’s the economy, stupid, not runaway spending. When times are good, the deficit shrinks. When times are bad, it gets worse. If you really want to avoid big deficits in the future, stop obsessing about cutting spending on the poor, and instead spend some time obsessing about economic policies that will help grow the economy.
