"the tax cuts add three to four times as much to the total public debt as do the wars in Iraq and

[pampango]

Afghanistan combined"

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/an-update-to-that-deficit-chart/239250/



Last week I mentioned the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities Chart that analyzed the sources of the federal budget deficit. For old time's sake, a thumbnail of that chart is at right. The original explanation and source notes are on the CBPP's site. In brief: the parts in shades of blue are stimulus-related outlays and depressed revenues for economic slowdown. The big dark-golden colored central swath is the revenue forgone by extending the Bush-era tax cuts.*

The CBPP has now applied its analysis not to the annual deficit but to the accumulated public debt -- the growth of which, of course, has been the source of so much political rhetoric and anxiety over the past year. The color coding is basically the same; the fine print and analysis are here; and the upshot is, as Chad Stone of the CBPP puts it:

"simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule (or paying for any portions that policymakers decide to extend) would stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio for the next decade. While we'd have to do much more to keep the debt stable over the longer run, that would be a huge accomplishment."

It's also interesting, on an eyeball-estimate basis, that the tax cuts add three to four times as much to the total public debt as do the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.