July 18, 2011
Pointless death is always tragic. The Post’s budget reporting is a great tragedy for trees everywhere. Today it tells readers about plans to consider a balanced budget amendment to the constitution in Congress. It would have been useful to tell readers something about this amendment, which does not just require a balanced budget. It also restricts spending to 18 percent of GDP, requiring a super-majority of both houses of Congress to exceed this level of spending. This implies a reduction in spending of more than 10 percent going forward (compared with its average over the last decade), even as health care costs and the aging of the population are pushing up spending on programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. It would have been useful if the Post had pointed this fact out to readers.
Later the article refers to a proposal by Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn to cut $9 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. It would have been useful to tell readers that this is approximately equal to 20 percent of projected spending or 4.4 percent of projected GDP over the decade. Few readers are able to assess the meaning of $9 trillion over a decade without some context.
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