Friday, January 3, 2020

Trump Administration Debt - Year Three


I skipped year two, but I picking up at year three shows a decent trend. Still overspending and so far holding pretty consistent with the first year trend and keeping between Bush and Obama levels of spending.

There has been acceleration of the overspending though, and if that bears out over the next five years, then the Trump administration could end up adding more debt than the Obama administration. Sad, bigly sad.

At this point in their respective administrations, Bush, Obama, and Trump averaged $421B, $1,508B, and $1,084B annual deficits.

Here are the charts based on data from the treasury:



And overlaid:

Wishes for America in 2020

Just two simple wishes, really, and both have to do with how Americans treat each other. Here they are:

  1. I want Americans to stop seeing each other, to stop treating each other, as mere members of groups. Whether the groups is a person's sex, sexual orientation, skin color, political party, or whatever, see and treat each other as individuals. Looking at someone by their group membership first (or only), as is done in identity politics, makes us all worse. By seeing each other and treating each other as complex individuals, rather than reducing each other to the bare, simplistic stereotypes of whatever groups we happen to belong to, we will go a long way towards improving our social interactions and raising the level of our communication with each other. 
  2. I want Americans, when they disagree with each other, to attack the ideas, not the people. When we attack people for having different ideas, we drive wedges between ourselves, and over time we're beginning to lose the cohesiveness and solidarity of an American people. We are all Americans, and we are and should be in this together. Further, by focusing our thoughts and when necessary, our attacks, on ideas, we'll exercise our own minds, strengthen our ability to think and communicate, and perhaps, if we've developed ourselves well enough, convince some of those people with whom we disagree.

That's it. Happy New Year everyone, and here's to a great 2020!