Posted on 10/23/2019 8:36:16 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Federal spending programs that are "designed to transfer income ... to individuals or families" are set to hit a record $3,223,943,000,000 in fiscal 2020, according to projections published by the Office of Management and Budget.
These so-called "payments for individuals" (as the OMB calls them) are projected to account for 67.9% of all federal spending this fiscal year and consume 14.4% of the nation's gross domestic product.
In its Historical Table 6.1, Composition of Outlays, the OMB reports the annual amounts spent on "payments for individuals" going back to fiscal 1940 in both current year and constant fiscal 2012 dollars. In the same table, it published its estimated totals for fiscal 2019 through fiscal 2024.
In 1940, the federal government spent only 2.1% of GDP on "payments for individuals." As a percentage of GDP, these payments peaked in fiscal 2010 at 15.5%.
But in inflation-adjusted dollars, the total amount the federal government spends on these payments has increased since then.
In fiscal 2010, federal "payments for individuals" totaled $2,406,300,000,000 in constant 2012 dollars. But by fiscal 2019, according to the OMB estimate, they had increased to $2,835,300,000,000 in constant fiscal 2012 dollars, and in fiscal 2020, they are projected to hit a record $2,837,500,000,000 in constant 2012 dollars (or $3,223,943,000,000 in current year dollars).
What exactly are these "payments to individuals" that will consume 67.9% of all federal spending this year?
"These are federal government spending programs designed to transfer income (in cash or in kind) to individuals or families," the OMB says in the introduction to its historical spending tables.
"To the extent feasible," says the OMB, "this category does not include reimbursements for current services rendered to the Government (e.g., salaries and interest)."
"The payments may be in the form of cash paid directly to individuals or they may take the form of the provision of services or the payment of bills for activities generally financed from personal income," the OMB says.
"They include outlays for the provision of medical care (in veterans' hospitals, for example) and for the payment of medical bills (e.g., Medicare)," says the OMB.
"They also include subsidies to reduce the cost of housing below market rates and food and nutrition assistance (such as SNAP -- formerly food stamps)," the OMB says.
In Table 11.3, Outlays for Payments for Individuals by Category and Major Program, the OMB breaks down the total outlays for "spending programs designed to transfer income" by the programs through which the income is transferred.
The most expensive set of these programs deals with medical care.
In fiscal 2020, the OMB estimates, federal medical care programs will spend a total of $1,434,169,000,000. Within this category, Medicare will spend $808,340,000,000, and Medicaid will spend $418,151,000,000.
Social Security and the railroad retirement program will spend another $1,110,989,000,000.
The civil service retirement program will spend $89,524,000,000. The earned income tax credit will spend $62,551,000,000. The Supplemental Security Income program will spend $53,440,000,000. Housing assistance programs will spend $48,928,000,000. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) will spend $48,603,000,000. Non-veteran student assistance will spend $44,654,000,000.
When a family's child tax credits exceed their tax liability, payments will cost $35,595,000,000.
And child nutrition and special milk programs will cost $24,862,000,000.
All of this spending will be conducted by a government that is going bankrupt.
At the same time the federal government will be spending a record amount on "programs designed to transfer income," according to the OMB's estimates, it will also be setting a record in overall spending while running up a record debt -- despite bringing in record tax revenues.
This fiscal year, according to the OMB's Table 1.1, the federal government will haul in $3,644,772,000,000 in total tax revenue, push out $4,745,573,000,000 in total spending and run a deficit of $1,100,801,000,000.
At the end of the fiscal year, the OMB predicts in its Table 7.1, federal debt will reach $24,057,463,000,000.
In the OMB's Table 1.3, which puts the numbers in constant fiscal 2012 dollars, this year's projected total tax revenues ($3,209,300,000,000) and total spending ($4,178,500,000,000) are both records.
When the projected debt total for the end of this fiscal year ($24,057,463,000,000) is compared to the debt at the close of previous fiscal years (after they have been adjusted into constant September 2019 dollars using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator), it, too, is a record.
The people who run our government are truly record setters -- when it comes to taking money from one group and giving it to another.
That includes taking money from future generations and spending it on their own.
We are socialist in everything but name.
And if any politican was to say anything at all about doing something to fix this, the voters will throw them out of office.
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Let’s add Universal Basic Income and Reparations to this in 2020!
/s
We have passed the point of no return. The final threshold of some sanity.
I have a friend. I will call him Rob.
Rob has a stepdaughter who married a guy in the Army and had 3 kids with him. He came back from Afghanistan with PTSD, went out after a stripper and they ended up divorced. For the sake of his grandkids Rob is now forced to play full-time stepparent to his them because this stepdaughter is pretty much worthless.
Rob’s wife was very distressed when her daughter moved with the kids into a much less well regarded school district. She was therefore shocked when her daughter announced that she LOVED that school district.
“WHY?” she asked.
“Because”, the daughter replied, “the East Floogenburg School District serves free breakfast, so I don’t have to get up and make it.”
There are millions upon millions just like her, and we are SOOOOOOO SCROOOOOOOD.
Rob knows that he needs to be in regular daily contact with his grandkids, or they will all be lost causes.
All income tax dollars pay for entitlements. The government agencies are discretionary. Discretionary money is borrowed. All of it.
If you want to know America’s future, look to Brazil or Argentina.
And on the other side, America's best and brightest women don't seem to reproduce at all. I went to a pretty good college, so I met a lot of smart women who entered all fields. 30 years on, I keep up with quite a few college friends on facebook. I guess at least 30-40% never married and never had kids. They are all about their careers in business or government. The rest got married at some point, but only one has more than 2 children (3 actually) - and she's still a very successful lawyer.
Social Security and Medicare and Federal Retirement benefits are paid into insurance programs, and the transfers are appropriately termed insurance and retirement benefits.
They are transfer payments only because the government debt operates as a huge trust fund.
All Federal payments are Transfer payments from taxpayers to someone else.
By giving people other people’s money, politicians assure their reelection.
The folks fall for the scam every time.
....and shortly thereafter progressing into Communism. Get ready. We are going LIVE...
It's the "you can have it all" problem. A full career and a well-cared-for family are hard to pull off in a 24 hour day. A few women can do it, but not many.
The wife was going to be a lawyer (passed the Bar, in fact), but once she got pregnant and those hormones hit, she made a choice. She hasn't regretted choosing family.
I know it doesn't work the same for everyone, of course.
EVERY story I read concerning these socialist programs local and federal is that there is NEVER EVER enough money. It’s quite scary that the socialists are so popular.
The scarey(?)thing in this is that the 14.4% off the TOP of GDP probably turns over about 4 times, so this 14.4% of GDP is likely responsible for half of GDP spending. Turn it off? Instant depression, anarchy, and martial law. In the cities, at the very least.
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