My Queasiness is Not a Super Bowl Hangover

Somebody get me a bucket.

Wisconsin's own Brian Riedl has authored this disturbing report of Federal spending on behalf of the Heritage Foundation.

Some lowlights:

Discretionary spending increases have not been contained to defense, homeland security, and Hurricane Katrina relief, but have grown across the board.

· Since 2001, all other discretionary spending has increased by 34% (23% after adjusting for inflation).

Entitlements (excluding net interest) consume 53% of all program spending and a record 10.8% of GDP.

· Entitlement spending is projected to nearly double over the next decade. Medicare is expanding by 9% annually, Medicaid by 8% annually, and Social Security by 6% annually.

· The Medicare drug entitlement is estimated to cost $724 billion over the next decade and as much as $2 trillion over the following decade. Lawmakers created this entitlement in 2003 without any plan to pay for it. The Medicare drug entitlement is a universal entitlement that will go to all seniors regardless of need.

· The total cost of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is projected to leap from 8.4% of GDP in 2005 to18.9% of GDP by 2050.

· Federal program spending is projected to reach 27.6% of GDP by 2050, while net interest spending will consumean additional 9% to 46% of GDP (depending on whether massive deficit spending increases interest rates).

· Unless Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are reformed, lawmakers face three options:

A) Raise taxes every year until taxes are 60 percent ($11,000 per household) higher than today;

B) Eliminate every federal program except Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by 2045; or

C) Do nothing and watch the federal debt expand so much that even a minor interest rate response would induce aspiral of rising debt and interest rates, threatening the entire economy.

About the report's author.