The U.S. Government Finances in Pictures

Hello once again, it's time for your regularly scheduled impetus to pre-pay your mortgages as fast as possible. I know I'm a broken record on this subject, but today I thought I'd present things in a more visual fashion. The following charts are true; their identities have not been changed to protect the guilty. Specifically, they're from the Treasury Department's little-used accrual-accounting version of what the government's up to. Accrual-accounting, you know, the way that everyone but the Feds manages their books? Well, they don't manage their books that way, 'cuz what does 500 years of business management experience have to do with government, right? They do, however, publish this data in a report available here.

Now, on to the pretty pictures!



You can see here what a good conservative Bush is: over 2.5 trillion dollars of debt with his name on it.


Is eleven-trillion dollars of liability enough for us? Wait till you see what's below....


Our public debt is over 30% of GDP. Anyone think we're going to grow our way out of the problem?


Does anyone honestly think that Social Security will be worth a damn?


How are we going to fund that?


Just in case Social Security weren't scary enough; how'd you like to spend 1/8 of GDP on Mediscare, much less private medical care?


Remember, those numbers are in billions!


That's right, Parts B & D alone are aiming at 10% of GDP. I don't have any collated data on the projections for all entitlements as a % of GDP, but would 30% be a bad guess?

This financial situation brought to you by the Democrats and Republicans, who're both too cowardly to admit it to the citizenry of our nation. And don't forget that the Federal Reserve is already printing money faster than you can say "wascally wabbit".