We often complain about the costs of items we buy (inflation) or the taxes we pay (government spending). But are we doing our job to hold those who work for us in the government accountable? One problem is that our government obscures good comparative fiscal spending information.

Here, I sum the monthly data over the period indicated to provide the most current information on the spending and yearly deficit from www.fiscal.treasury.gov and the debt as of September from fiscaldata.treasury.gov. Each are reported in trillions of dollars.

2008: $2.81, $0.22, $10.02

2009: $3.29, $0.92, $11.91

2010: $3.42, $1.35, $13.56

2011: $3.63, $1.41, $14.79

2012: $3.59, $1.25, $16.07

2013: $3.49, $0.91, $16.74

2014: $3.39, $0.49, $17.82

2015: $3.62, $0.51, $18.15

2016: $3.76, $0.46, $19.57

2017: $3.92, $0.65, $20.24

2018: $4.08, $0.74, $21.52

2019: $4.21, $0.87, $22.72

2020: $4.60, $1.04, $26.95

2021: $7.62, $4.09, $28.43

2022: $6.20, $1.74, $30.93

2023: $6.63, $1.81, $33.17

2024: $6.24, $1.66, $34.74* (*not a complete fiscal year, value as of May 15)

You can see the tremendous cost of the covid pandemic in 2021. But we have continued to spend at an unsustainable rate at a time when unemployment is low and the GDP has doubled from $14 trillion in 2008 to $28 trillion today. The fiscal year is not yet complete, yet we have an almost 250% increase in the debt in less than 16 years!

Chris Baldy

Murrysville

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