Here’s a comparison of various federal budget proposals circulating in Washington these days. For fiscal 2014, which begins on Oct. 1 of this year, the law in place (with another sequester) requires an across-the-board cut of $109 billion, with half coming from defense and half from domestic programs. Nothing would be cut from Social Security, Medicare, military pay, veterans’ benefits and a few other programs. Chances are that Congress will do some tweaks to protect the military budget. You’ll see that no proposal comes close to a balanced budget.
| Fiscal 2013 | Fiscal 2014 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Continuing resolution with sequester (in billions) | Senate passed (in billions) | House passed (in billions) | Obama proposal (in billions) | Continuing resolutions with sequester (in billions) |
|
| Social Security | $813 | $860 | $854 | $860 | $854 |
| Defense | $651 | $600 | $560 | $618 | $588 |
| Medicare | $504 | $535 | $509 | $524 | $509 |
| Medicaid | $267 | $357 | $321 | $304 | $297 |
| Net interest on debt | $223 | $244 | $242 | $223 | $243 |
| All other spending | $1,227 | $1,119 | $1,045 | $1,249 | $1,127 |
| TOTAL | $3,685 | $3,715 | $3,531 | $3,778 | $3,618 |
| Tax increases | $44 | $20 | $0 | $31 | $0 |
| Deficit | $973 | $693 | $528 | $744 | $616 |
| Total debt | $17,249 | $18,008 | $17,777 | $18,247 | $17,886 |
| Source | OMB | Senate | House | OBM | CBO |
