Reply #26: You Can Also Look At SAUS [View All]

The Statistical Abstract of the United States always provides GDP numbers, and gov't spending values, broken out by departmental expenditures.

The most recent year wouldn't be published yet, but the website would have YTD numbers. The SAUS website, however, is a subscriber service. But, a good reference would be to get last year's SAUS at the library and look at the rate of change in defense spending vs. the change in GDP.

You will find that the same thing is happening now as happened in the Reagan era. The GDP "growth" is being financed by borrowed money that is being spent on defense. Any sound fiscal analysis of these data from 1982 - 1992 will show that 88% of all growth of GDP (above natural growth rate due to population increases) was fueled by borrowed money. Since over 70% of the borrowed money was spent on defense spending increases over that time, 61.6% of the total growth of GDP was due to this factor.

If one projects the growth of real GDP (above natural) based upon the prior 30 years before the Reagan era, you would find the estimated growth of real GDP to be almost identical, (the differences are statistically insignificant). IOW, all the Reaganomics nonsense accomlished NOTHING economically, except to drown the country in red ink.

Since the economic "principles" being employed today are the same as those used in that era, there is no reason to expect a different result.
The Professor