Byron York has an interesting column today claiming that, “The deficits are largely the result not of entitlements but of an explosion in spending related to the economic downturn and the rise of Democrats to power in Washington.” This is a provocative claim. How does Byron defend it?
He starts by changing the definition of entitlement program. For everyone else in Washington, entitlements are programs whose annual spending levels are set by their own governing statutes and are therefore not dependent on appropriation bills for funding. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the biggest three entitlement programs. But Byron includes Medicaid’s recent $86 billion spending increase with “spending related to the economic downturn.”
Byron then adds $338 billion in lost tax revenues from the recession and arrives at a $681 billion figure, which is almost half of 2011′s projected $1.5 trillion deficit. But if we take out the loss in tax revenue, which isn’t spending, and the Medicaid spending increase, which is entitlement spending, we are left with just $257 billion. To put that in perspective, $257 billion would be just 7% of our nation’s $3.7 trillion 2011 budget. Meanwhile our nation’s big three entitlement programs make up 42% of that spending total.
He continues:
According to the Congressional Budget Office’s January baseline, entitlement spending is scheduled to account for 56% of all federal spending between now and 2021. Non-defense discretionary spending was scheduled to account for just 13%. The recent debt deal already cut non-defense discretionary spending over that time frame by over $500 billion, lowering its 2012-2021 spending share to just 12%. Over that same time, mandatory spending is set to increase at a 5.6% clip while non-defense discretionary spending will grow just 1.4%. Sure you could cut some NPR funding, maybe even get rid of the Department of Education entirely, but none of that will put a real dent in our deficits. Only entitlement reform can.
Byron concludes:
President Obama’s failed $821 billion stimulus has already been spent. Republican candidates cannot wish that money back into Treasury’s coffers. If they are going to be serious about cutting spending, they must tackle entitlements now. Medicare’s hospital program (Part A) will run a $66 billion current account deficit this year. Medicare Part B, the doctor program, and Part D, the drug program, will pay out $216 billion more in benefits than they take in premiums this year. Social Security will pay out $46 billion more than it takes in this year. Entitlements are causing our deficit today.
A political case can be made that Republicans should just pretend we don’t have an entitlement problem. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty certainly believed that. How did that work out for him?
