Our friends at Bankrupting America are clearly feeling the Thanksgiving spirit with their new infographic depicting the Supercommittee members as big juicy turkeys. It's enough to make us hungry…for deficit reduction!
And on a serious note, the organization created a fact sheet on the imiplications of the Supercommittee's failure. Read it and weep into your mashed potatoes.
SUPER COMMITTEE, SUPER FAILURE
The failure of the Super Committee to submit legislation means $1.2 trillion will automatically be cut from federal spending fiscal years 2013-2021. This is broken
down:
71% discretionary spending
13% mandatory spending
16% savings on interest payments
When compared to our deficit spending this year, these reductions spread over 9 years are minimal.
• Last year alone, the federal government racked up $1.3 trillion2 in deficit
spending. The federal government is expected to spend $40.2993 over the
next ten years.
• The federal debt is expected to grow by $8.5 trillion over the next 10 years if
federal spending remains on its current track.
Much, much more is needed. In a joint statement to the Super Committee, the Co-Chairs of the President’s deficit commission Erskin Bowles & Alan Simpson stated:
By now everyone must understand that $4 trillion dollars of deficit reduction is not the maximum we need to reduce the deficit over the next ten years, it is not the ideal amount, it is the minimum amount we need to reduce the deficit to put our fiscal house in order and to stabilize our debt and get it on adownward path as a percent of GDP.