Yesterday, I commented that it doesn't make much sense to look at most of the budget plans that are being proposed, since they will change so much, and always in the direction of more spending.
Another problem is that these proposals often make absurd exact detailed projections many years out. Paul Krugman spotted in Heritage Foundation data, used for Paul Ryan's budget proposal, a forecast of unemployment at 2.8% in 2021. Aside from the absurdity of forecasting the economy 10 years out in exacting detail, a forecast of only 2.8% unemployment seems pretty close to impossible given the current trends in the United States.
Krugman caught Heritage pulling the entire civilian unemployment data series in an "updated" version of the plan.
I laughed when I saw Paul Ryan's budget proposal and it was talking about the year 2050. Every single deficit and debt reduction plan for the last 30 years included some long-term claim for reducing the debt, and yet the debt only grows. Can somebody even rememebr what the last debt reduction plan was and explain why it didn't work? Sometimes you simply have to wonder if you're living in a Lewis Carroll book.
ReplyDeleteHow about this for a long-term deficit reduction plan: you can't spend any more money than what you have recieved in revenue, ever. No projections, no forecasts, only money you have.