Lies, Damned Lies, And A $40 Tril. Debt

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

The Wall Street Journal puts it this way: “Wars, the bursting of the dot-com bubble, and tax cuts sent budgets off course in the early 2000s.”

False. False. And False.

Wars: In 2001, the Defense Department accounted for 15.6% of federal spending. In 2015, it was 15.2%. This year, it will account for just 12.1%.

Dot-com bubble: Federal revenues did fall 11% after the bubble burst in 2000 and the economy went into a mild recession. But revenues reached a new peak in 2005.

Tax cuts: Federal revenues today are 159% higher than they were in 2000. They are on track to climb another 38% in the next five years.

So, no. None of those explain why national debt has gone from $5.67 trillion to $40 trillion since 2000, or why it’s doubled since 2017.

What does?

Well, take a look at the chart below. What do you see?

https://issuesinsights.com/2026/08/25/lies-damned-lies-and-a-40-t-debt/

[Ralph Wiggum]

It has been a bipartisan boondoggle pork fest the past 25 years. The biggest hurdle is to get rid or more realistically wean off of all the entitlement programs which have been entrenched for far too long. And that is never politically popular, which is why it is so difficult to accomplish.

The chart is illustrative to idiots who whine about tax cuts and defense spending and how much they cost without mentioning the aforementioned entitlement spending.

I could go on for paragraphs whining about goobermint spending, but I'll stop.