Tuesday, March 2, 2010

A Graph is Worth A Thousand IOUs

From Econbrowser:

The first bar is the impact on the unified budget balance of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA) of 2001. The second is the impact on the budget balance of the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (JGTRRA) of 2003. The third bar is the CBO estimated impact on the deficit of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act proposed in the Senate on November 19, for 2010-2019.
Also, for the record, that unemployment benefits extension that has, in its wanton disregard for fiscal responsibility and intergenerational equity, so offended Senator Bunning, would (I believe) pop about a fourth of the way down the JGTRRA column. And as long as you have that record open (leaving aside the budgetary (that is, economic) cost of not extending benefits), Bunning's vote on both the 2001 and 2003 GTRRA bills (are you sitting down?): yea and yea.

3 comments:

  1. But we can't forget that Americans hate partisanship more than anything else, which is why it would be political suicide to point out that the Republicans are responsible for the ruin of our public finances and the impoverishment of vast swathes of the American public.

    Right?

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can't see it but I just bumped your chest. Then, continuing with this thoracic theme, and in the spirit of injurious insult to one's neighbor which is the Geist of our Zeit, I pooped on it.

    ReplyDelete