Indulge Me

Indulge me. What follows has been percolating in my head since Friday afternoon of last week when the Biden Administration announced its federal budget for 2022. The fact that the decision was made to announce this bit of news late on a Friday of a holiday weekend should tell you something about how much coverage they hoped it would get, but that’s a story for another day. Below I have constructed a thumbnail sketch of the pertinent numbers:

Projected spending...6 Trillion dollars, which when written in numbers looks like this...$6,000,000,000,000.00

Projected revenue.....4.2 Trillion dollars

Projected deficit for 2022...1.8 Trillion dollars

For anyone quaint enough to be concerned about debts and deficits, the Biden Administration assures us that if all goes according to plan, the budget will become balanced in 2037, long after Joe Biden has gone on to his eternal reward.

What all this budget talk got me to thinking about was the last time this country actually had a balanced budget. Actually we ran a surplus of nearly 250 billion dollars. For younger readers of this blog, a surplus is when the government takes in more money than it spends. The year was 2000. It was the last budget submitted to Congress by President Bill Clinton, who had famously declared that “The era of big government is over!” 

Projected spending...1.7 Trillion dollars

Projected revenue.....2 Trillion dollars

Projected surplus......230 billion

So, 22 years ago the entire budget for the federal government was 1.7 trillion. In 2022 that’s just the amount of red ink. Wow. Let’s see now:

2000 spending = 1.7 Trillion

2022 spending = 6 Trillion

Spending is up 352% 

2000 revenue = 2 Trillion

2022 revenue = 4.2 Trillion

Revenue is up 210%

This got me to thinking. It’s easy for all of us to criticize the profligacy of politicians. We have at this hour 28 trillion reasons to do so. But, what about me? How has MY spending and revenue compared with that of my government? Good question. It wasn’t easy, but I found my old tax returns and here are the numbers:

2000 spending = NOYB*

2022 spending = NOYB*

Spending is up 192%

2000 revenue = NOYB*

2022 revenue = NOYB*

Revenue is up 211%

That’s funny, my revenue over the past 22 years has grown at nearly the exact same pace as that of the federal government, and yet I have run a surplus in all but two of the past 22 years (the dreaded two years when both of my children were enrolled in private, out of state universities at the same time!!). 

Of course, you can’t compare anyone’s personal finances to the economic life of a nation state except for kicks and giggles, but it is interesting. Actually, I must admit it would have been great fun to run 22 deficits in the Dunnevant home. Imagine all the amazing trips we could have gone on and stuff we could have bought. But, I was restricted by the fact that although I possessed an excellent credit history, I would have been expected to eventually pay all of that money back, with interest. That expectation would have been rather unyielding and I would not have had the advantage that a sovereign nation has of simply printing money. 

So, Doug Dunnevant has racked up a healthy surplus over the past 22 years, while our government has added 23,000,000,000,000.00 (TRILLION) to the national debt since that heady day in February of 2000 when Bill Clinton sent the last balanced budget to Congress.

* None Of Your Business