I have thoroughly enjoyed more than one of David Mamet’s plays and screenplays—but it looks as if he and I have at least one difference of opinion regarding our nation’s economic matters.
At The Huffington Post, Mamet published a cartoon graphic that confused me more than just a bit: I don’t remember the Clinton surplus being $5.6 trillion, nor do I recall the Bush deficit being $5.6 trillion. So I checked the government's official numbers again, and sure enough, I couldn’t find any deficits or surpluses that big for either president. But the graphic Mamet posted, whether or not it’s an April Fool’s joke, is getting a lot of attention. Reason I know: I’m getting a lot of traffic from that site, because one of his commenters posted a link to these debt burden graphics at my site.
The cartoon implies that the government’s debt burden during the Clinton years was nothing but good news compared to today; but the numbers I’m watching do not confirm that implied hypothesis. That bugs me, because the question of the government’s debt burden is an important one: if it gets too high, it will strain the government’s financial resources and creditworthiness; if it stays at a comfortable, manageable level, it won’t. How we choose to define “too high,” “just right,” or “not enough” is up for debate—objective debate—but that becomes impossible in an environment filled with half-truths and misinformation: the din of the emotional political battle intensifies, while the truth gets drowned out by all the bumpersticker-mentality sloganeering and cartoon-drawing.
So, what the heck, I decided to inject some facts into the mix. Facts that come from the Department of the Treasury, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Public Debt. All I’ve done is calculate a few ratios and graph the results on the two charts below. Both charts are measures of the USA’s “debt burden.” [And both will become monthly features, starting now.]
The first one, Debt Burden Watch, shows the recent history of our debt-to-GDP ratio (debt as a share of the economy—widely accepted by economists as a good measure of debt burden). Here it is; click to enlarge.
[Anyone interested in the full history of the USA’s debt burden can see it laid out on this chart I published a year ago. It clearly shows what has caused the debt burden to rise: wars, recessions, and depressions. It also shows what has caused the debt burden to drop: a healthy economy with sustained, robust economic growth.]
The second chart, Interest Burden Watch, shows the portion of our tax receipts required to pay interest on the debt. (When the next Monthly Treasury Statement is published next week, I’ll update it through March.) Click to enlarge.
Facts are stubborn things, aren’t they? But then, I guess cartoons have never been a consistently-reliable source of facts, regardless of their ability to grab our attention.
