In the year 2525
I’m struck by how long-term the projections are in Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap”
balance the budget by 2063, and reduce Medicare’s expected share of the economy in 2080 from a projected 14.3 percent of GDP to a mere 4 percent.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for using CBO/JCT (I’m sure Megan McArdle would say I’m leaving out the most important non-partisan accounting group here and that that proves everything I say is wrong) projections and I agree that Medicare is the most problematic entitlement program, in terms of rising costs. But seventy years is an awfully long time to look into the future (MY):
Turn your time machine seventy years back in time and consider the fate of a member of congress in 1940 trying to eliminate the national debt by 2010.
It is hard to take conservative commentators seriously when they whine about the limits of what we know and “gaming” the CBO, then gush about the intellectual ambition of a plan to look 70 years into the future.
August 15, 2010 12:28 pm
Posted in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute, Domestic Affairs
41 Comments
41 Responses
beltane - August 15, 2010 | 12:31 pm · Link
Since we are projecting so far into the future, wouldn’t it make sense to include an analysis of global warming’s potential effect on the nation’s economy?
In 1940 do you think it would have been possible for anyone to predict what our world would be like today?
And the asteroid, don’t forget the asteroid that will land on Paul Ryan’s house in 2028.
arguingwithsignposts - August 15, 2010 | 12:39 pm · Link
You clearly don’t have the right calculator.
Punchy - August 15, 2010 | 12:43 pm · Link
I’m no mathematician, but if we wait 53 years to pay off this abortion of a deficit, I’m pretty sure we’ll be paying a gazillion dollars more in interest than the original principal.
Any projections to what the Chinese surplus will be by 2063? 8 trillion?
Ash Can - August 15, 2010 | 12:45 pm · Link
I think Ryan just wants to make sure that, when his plan is pronounced a dismal failure, he’s not around to suffer all the opprobrium.
Hal - August 15, 2010 | 12:52 pm · Link
So Buck Rogers won’t have a deficit to worry about then?
ChrisB - August 15, 2010 | 12:57 pm · Link
kudos for the zager and evans reference
Wannabe Speechwriter - August 15, 2010 | 1:01 pm · Link
Does Ryan’s plan take this into account:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65gYJXZfIDY
Yes, Matt Yglesias has brought this up before
Frank Wilhoit - August 15, 2010 | 1:03 pm · Link
There’s only one thing you need to know about Republicans.
On any issue of policy, philosophy, ethics, of morality, at any level of detail,
if the party labels are reversed, they will reverse their position.
The conclusion that I draw from this is that none of their positions have any content or can or should be engaged as if they had any content. Your mileage may vary.
Dave - August 15, 2010 | 1:05 pm · Link
The best part of projecting so far into the future is you can just make shit up. I predict in 70 years we will reduce the deficit by eleventy billion dollars, thanks in part to the Zombie Apocalypse of 2037, which will reduce the population by 50% and decrease total government layouts.
Yay, now I’m a Republican Congressman!!
Linda Featheringill - August 15, 2010 | 1:06 pm · Link
He can’t be serious. You can’t solve problems that far in advance, can you? When the effects of your efforts will matter only to people who probably aren’t even born yet?
MoeLarryAndJesus - August 15, 2010 | 1:08 pm · Link
Jeezus will be returning within a decade and he’ll be paying off the debt with his bag of magic beans.
So there.
MikeBoyScout - August 15, 2010 | 1:10 pm · Link
Silly rabbit!
What is all this fuss about balanced budgets?
This was solved in 2007.
Dateline January 3, 2007
President Bush said on Tuesday that he would propose a plan that he insists would, if followed, achieve a balanced budget by 2012, the most optimistic he has been in at least five years, and he said the goal could be achieved without rescinding any of his big tax cuts.
See there. All is well. Republicans are very serious about balanced budgets in the future if you’ll give them a
hamburgertax cut today.Martin - August 15, 2010 | 1:18 pm · Link
@beltane: Global warming is the biggest lie perpetrated on the American people. Instead, they should propose the CBO factor in the destruction of the middle east and the minions of the anti-christ slaughtering the non-believers before Jesus’s return. That’d cut loose a lot of dead hippie and minority weight, who obviously aren’t contributing payroll taxes from their collectives and welfare crack houses. I predict a full 50% cut in entitlement benefits right there. Surely the rapture will happen in the next 60 years. That seems like a no-brainer.
Joey Maloney - August 15, 2010 | 1:19 pm · Link
@Ash Can:
He needn’t work so hard. He’ll be one of the first to lose his head in the 2016 Republican Reign of Terror.
PS, Looooooooooved that song in 6th grade – dovetailed my two primary obsessions of science fiction and bad bubblegum music.
Martin - August 15, 2010 | 1:22 pm · Link
@Wannabe Speechwriter: And what of the 600 million that die in WWIII in the 2050s? Surely that would bend the cost curve, at least at first.
RSA - August 15, 2010 | 1:27 pm · Link
Consider that same congressman in 1940 thinking about public health care (8 years before it became possible to mass produce penicillin), about transportation (16 years before the Interstate Act), about public education (14 years before Brown), about investment in technology (before the founding of NSF and DARPA, before the invention of the transistor) ... There are too many variables, I think, to make reasonable projections, even 20 years ahead.
morzer - August 15, 2010 | 1:27 pm · Link
@Dave:
Frankly, Congressman, you seem over-qualified! Could it be that the best route to Congress is now through a Creative Writing program?
calling all toasters - August 15, 2010 | 1:30 pm · Link
I will make a prediction, and you can bank it: in 70 years, conservatives will still be douchebags.
Villago Delenda Est - August 15, 2010 | 1:30 pm · Link
This is where you had me:
It is hard to take conservative commentators seriously
Villago Delenda Est - August 15, 2010 | 1:31 pm · Link
@Martin:
The snark! It’s overwhelming!
trollhattan - August 15, 2010 | 1:33 pm · Link
@ DougJ
You have your Obscure Song Title dial set on “11” don’t you?
[Golf Clap]
beltane - August 15, 2010 | 1:40 pm · Link
@calling all toasters: Conservatives being douchebags is the only constant in our universe. Beyond that, everything is speculation.
Jay in Oregon - August 15, 2010 | 1:56 pm · Link
@beltane:
Don’t forget… In A.D. 2101 war was beginning!
Kryptik - August 15, 2010 | 2:02 pm · Link
The most absurd thing too is that this is a response to what they see as Obama’s present malfeasance. “Obama’s personally and undeniably responsible for every single economic woe we have RIGHT NOW! So go for my plan, and we’ll have everything solved in 70 years!”
beltane - August 15, 2010 | 2:12 pm · Link
@trollhattan: I actually heard that song on the radio yesterday for the first time in two decades. It is a classic of overwrought 60’s psychedelic pop.
MattF - August 15, 2010 | 2:18 pm · Link
There’s a theoretical point here—if you assume constant interest rates, then all time dependences are exponential, which implies that all functions of time either go to zero or to infinity in the long term. What this means, in-real-life, is that simple (i.e., non-stochastic) simulations are only useful in the short to medium term, and then only if you have a good grip on their limitations. Stochastic simulations have their own idiosyncracies, but they can be pushed a little harder.
El Cid - August 15, 2010 | 2:26 pm · Link
So, Republicans reject the practice of using modeling approaches to simulate the likely results of global warming, but predicting budgets a million years into the future based on the rosiest assumptions is A-OK.
TuiMel - August 15, 2010 | 2:27 pm · Link
@trollhattan:
Obscure if you weren’t around when it was popular.
Andrew Dabrowski - August 15, 2010 | 2:31 pm · Link
I’ve been thinking the same thing for years. No one in Washington ever worries about problems this far ahead – we’re lucky if they address a threat after it’s detonated (see e.g. financial reform) .
It’s clear that Republicans are being disingenuous. They just want a reason to cut entitlements, and make more tax cuts possible. The fact that this is one of the biggest talking points for budget cuts shows just how bankrupt NeoCon economics has become.
DougJ - August 15, 2010 | 2:36 pm · Link
@MattF:
Yes, very well put.
Roger Moore - August 15, 2010 | 2:44 pm · Link
Hell, turn your clock back 10 years to 2000. The biggest worry back then was that by today we’d be too close to paying off the National Debt, and that this was such a terrible thing that we had to avoid it with massive tax cuts. If 10 years is enough time to go from “OMG! We can’t pay of the Debt, it would be terrible” to “OMG! The massive Debt will crush us all”, 70 years is a ridiculous time scale to contemplate.
Roger Moore - August 15, 2010 | 2:57 pm · Link
@El Cid:
You aren’t really this naive, are you? The Republican rule about prognostication is very simple. Techniques that predict things the Republicans like are valid; techniques that predict things they don’t like are invalid. It’s all part of the larger pattern. Contemporary Conservatives use facts the way a drunk uses a light pole: for support, not illumination.
cleek - August 15, 2010 | 3:02 pm · Link
@beltane:
a recent Futurama episode had a long gag going about that song
Rick Massimo - August 15, 2010 | 3:11 pm · Link
I believe it was Josh Marshall who said something along the lines of “Ryan’s forgetting about the Jet packs in 2040.”
No, they just want to have an excuse for a “plan” that cuts taxes for the rich even more and doesn’t balance the budget: “But people in 2050 will have the political ‘courage’ that we don’t!”
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal - August 15, 2010 | 3:24 pm · Link
@MattF:
Huh? This isn’t true. The simplest example is just your average perpetuity, which has a value of the periodic payment times the reciprocal of the interest rate. It’s possible to create all sorts of infinite payment present value problems that converge to a positive finite number. The people who write the actuarial exams love them.
There are all sorts of reasons why budget forecasting out seventy years is a dumb idea. This isn’t one of them.
Quiddity - August 15, 2010 | 5:43 pm · Link
Nanotechnology will save us all. It will replace Medicare with an annual injection of nanodoctors into the blood stream. Once in your body, the nanodoctors will (a) ferret out any cancer cells, (b) destroy all viruses and harmful bacteria, (c) repair failing organs, and (d) submit nanoinvoices over a tiered internet, which will be paid in nanodollars.
This will definitely happen by 2080!
By that I mean 2080 factorial, which is a number 6,000 digits long (not posted here as a courtesy). When 2080! arrives, you can be sure that we will have mastered nanotechnology. The problem is, by that time every neutron and proton will have decayed, which means nobody will be around to marvel at Ryan’s plan. So sad.
DougJ - August 15, 2010 | 7:03 pm · Link
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
I don’t think it’s so far off, even if put simplistically (though well), though I would probably say that inflation is the driver here. Specifically, a $300 billion dollar deficit now would be the equivalent of a $2.4 trillion dollar deficit in 70 years, assuming roughly 3% inflation. It’s easy to come up with scare numbers about money by projecting very far into the future.
efgoldman - August 15, 2010 | 7:11 pm · Link
@Quiddity:
First paragraph made chortle audibly. “nanoinvoices”. Hah! Just means they’ll be in pixels instead of paper.
@MattF:
Well thank you for clearing that up!
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
And thank you for clearing up the clearing up.
I think you both miss the bigger theoretical point: Since today’s scare quote alert “conservatives” apparently no longer believe in any, you know, facts, they’ve invented a new curve: The Fantasy Curve, wherein the space-time continuum only curves to the right, throwing off relativity, evolution and number theory in its wake. In their world, Bertrand Russell didn’t prove anything except he could kill a lot of trees.
Shalimar - August 15, 2010 | 8:36 pm · Link
@MoeLarryAndJesus: Beans? Jesus pays debts with wine. Everyone knows that.
Anne Laurie - August 15, 2010 | 9:43 pm · Link
@Shalimar:
Not according to the Baptists of my acquaintance… I’ve been told the Cana ‘miracle’ involved grape juice. Which doesn’t seem all that festive for a grown-up party, really…
kansi - August 16, 2010 | 10:57 am · Link
@Anne Laurie:
Not being a Baptist, I just have to ask: Are you serious?