
Show HN: Exploring the US Budget, 1962-2019 - nni
http://learnforeverlearn.com/usbudget/
======
chrismealy
The government really is an insurance company with an army.

~~~
gobengo
When you think about it, that's not a bad definition of government in < 140
chars.

------
dredmorbius
I like this.

First response: I'd prefer the _total_ spending was more clearly highlighted
(larger font and/or to the side).

Inflation-adjusted or percent of total GDP would also be useful.

The detail pop-ups are pretty sweet. A little hard to navigate (somewhat a
property of space available). Maybe give them more of the window -- if
someone's looking at the detail _show them the detail_ and allocate display
space to it.

------
anonymoushn
How does the national debt increase from $5,656,270,901,633.43 to
$5,674,178,209,886.86 during a year with a $200,000,000,000 surplus?

~~~
dripton
It wasn't a real on-budget surplus. It was only a surplus if you took the
revenue from Social Security tax and ignored the obligation to later pay
Social Security with it.

~~~
nni
Hey dripton - curious what your thoughts are on this:
[http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-
unde...](http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-
clinton/)

I think that this gets into what the deal might have been with respect to
whether you count the social security tax or not. I think that they conclude
there is a "surplus" either way, although it is of course smaller. However,
you might be referring to something else.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
That seems to be saying that accounting for social security would eliminate
~99% of the surplus. But what about medicare and the like?

------
Aloha
This would be more helpful is it was indexed to inflation, the numbers are
quite misleading otherwise.

------
dmix
Did some math for fun:

DoD 2000-2014 = $282 billion to $587 billion = 2.08x increase over 14 years.

Total 2000-2004 = $1.79 trillion to $3.65 trillion = 2.03x increase.

So since 9/11 DoD seems to be expanding at the rate of total government
expansion, which is pretty rapid. Compared to the 14 years before that from
1985-1999.

DoD 1985-1999 = $246 billion to $262 billion = 1.065x increase over 14 years

Total 1985-1999 = $946 billion to $1.7 trillion = 1.7x increase

So the total government is growing at a similar rate, but DoD exploded in size
in the last 14 years.

~~~
Retric
Unfortunatly the US budget is intentionally misleading in a wide number of
ways.

For example there is a lot of DoD spending that's not included in those
numbers. Such as veterains affairs. Also, those numbers don't take into
account inflation or the current GDP.

~~~
frogpelt
They split it up by discretionary and mandatory.

Supporting veterans or paying government employees' promised pensions is
considered mandatory. Buying 12 new aircraft carriers is not mandatory.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> They split it up by discretionary and mandatory.

Which has always been a bit of a lie for political expediency. Most of the
"mandatory" expenditures aren't actually fixed amounts. For example, changing
the retirement age or what benefits government health plans provide will
directly impact "mandatory" spending.

------
wdr1
Beautiful visualization! I really like it.

Only semi-related, but something I've always wondered: Like a lot of other
sources, this graph shows us running surplus in '98 & '99.

At the same time, the federal debt increased in those years:

[http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histd...](http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm)

Can anyone explain why?

~~~
joshuaheard
Without looking at the issue, I can say that the "deficit" and "surplus" are
for the budget. Actual spending may differ, which may explain the rise of the
debt.

------
frogpelt
The projections show the deficit being almost equal to the debt service
payments in 2017-2019. There's a lesson about debt in there somewhere.

------
imaginenore
Inflation-adjusted version would be useful.

~~~
pdeuchler
But would also be difficult, and introduce a political element to it

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Uhm, no. Inflation is a given; these numbers aren't very useful without
adjusting for inflation and population and/or GDP growth.

~~~
sokoloff
Inflation itself is a fact. The exact amount of inflation in any given time
period is subject to differing points of view.

The choice of "which inflation measure" can be viewed as a political choice
because it could be carefully chosen to tell the story you prefer. (choice A
might yield "Look how much worse measure X was during party Y's tenure" which
choice B could tell an even-handed or even opposing story)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
We have had and do have independent agencies to measure inflation. But if you
wish, we also measure GDP which is an absolute number. Here is the budget with
respect to GDP:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_Revenues_and_Outlays...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_Revenues_and_Outlays_as_Percent_GDP,_2014.png)

We start out with outlays at under 16% GDP in 1970, and go all the way up to
20% in 2014, with a spike up to 24% during the last crisis. Not surprising,
shocking, or daramatic at all. This is better than even the inflation adjusted
numbers; e.g.

[http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/economics/econprinc...](http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/economics/econprinciples2001/pdfs/C10-01C-820487.pdf)

Well, W2, we spent a lot of money then, but even still, federal spending by
2000 was 8X that of spending in 1940. Why is that? Well, population growth
obviously, higher expectations as another.

By going with ABSOLUTE numbers with no context on population, inflation, and
GDP...that's very biased.

Edit: the charts are still useful, if you look at them only for relatively
distribution of spending. They don't convey how spending compares to the
overall economy, however.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> But if you wish, we also measure GDP which is an absolute number.

Of course, using GDP rather than inflation is also a political choice because
GDP has on average increased more than inflation.

Also, comparing the government budget with GDP will never show more than a
modest increase because a "large" increase (e.g. quadrupling the government
budget as a percentage of GDP) would require the government to be consuming in
excess of 100% of GDP.

On the other hand, if compared with inflation there is an exponential increase
in the federal budget over time. For example, the 1962 budget of $107B would
be $884B in 2014 dollars (using CPI) but the 2014 budget is $3650B, which
exceeds the real 1962 GDP.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It definitely does show large increases during the depression (when the
economy shrank) and during WII, when we went all out into war. Fluctuations
since then have been quite boring.

------
pandatigox
Really nice visualization - helps to put things in perspective. Interesting
how 2009 shows a US deficit in the trillions.

------
rando289
Over time comparisons should be inflation adjusted, and optionally adjusted by
total population or gdb.

------
b2themax
Good job, great visuals make it easy to understand the numbers.

------
pdeuchler
Is this on github/bitbucket/google code or am I going to have to dig around
the JS to mess around with it?

Regardless, pretty cool.

~~~
sheetjs
Your possibilities aren't mutually exclusive: There are many unminified
javascript files floating around that are not OSS.

> Is this OSS

Unless the author releases it under an open source license, the answer is no

> am I going to have to dig around minified JS to mess around with it?

The unminified source is available at
[http://learnforeverlearn.com/usbudget/dist/usbudget.js](http://learnforeverlearn.com/usbudget/dist/usbudget.js)

The source data is available at
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/supplemental](http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/supplemental)
(note that XLS files are the normative versions)

~~~
pdeuchler
Edited comment to change tone and clarify what I was asking

------
judk
Sigh, another fancy site that doesn't work on mobile, but could be presented
with simple divs/tables or even ASCII art.

~~~
nni
judk - not sure if you're checking back, but wondering what device you are
using. It has some responsive design stuff that should let it be usable on an
iPhone in portrait (it just shows the two main bars). Small screen landscape
is another issue.

