America’s Fiscal Problem Is Excessive Government Spending

America’s Fiscal Problem Is Excessive Government Spending - Dan Mitchell
"...But since many people focus first and foremost on fiscal balance, let’s take a look at why budget surpluses at the turn of the century have turned into big budget deficits.
I’m motivated to address this issue because of this chart from Brian Riedl’s impressive collection. 

It shows spending increases are responsible for 97.5 percent of the shift.

• Some of you may be wondering if the chart is accurate. I can easily imagine my friends on the left exclaiming, “What about the Bush tax cuts and the Trump tax cuts?!?”
• Those tax cuts did happen, but they were mostly offset by Obama’s “fiscal cliff” tax increase and real bracket creep (the tax burden tends to increase over time since even small increases in economic growth will push households into higher tax brackets)...