It doesn't have to. But GDP is a good proxy for the tax base. If the problem is deficits and spending isn't increasing linearly with GDP, that suggests the problem is with taxation. Not spending.
Another factor is cost of debt. In a decreasing interest rate environment it's possible to run with increasing deficits without any major issues, but once you bounce off zero, even if thos deficits are not currently a problem, projections show that they will be.
For simplicity, imagine one program like food stamps. It costs X dollars per person on the program.
The cost of that program should scale with inflation and population. If taxes and government should scale with GDP, that implies either making more programs or expanding existing ones. As an example, you'd increase the amount of people eligible for food stamps as the population became wealthier.
I can understand that as an argument but implying that the government isn't growing because the relationship to GDP hasn't changed seems to prove the opposite to me.
The federal budget, if the size of government remained static, should be Inflation * Population increase, shouldn't it?
GDP is rising faster than inflation so the services that the government provides should take less, as a percentage, of the population's money.
The cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has been decreasing year over year when adjusted for inflation since 2021. It was also decreasing when adjusted for inflation from 2013 to 2019.
The logic for food stamps does not really apply to other programs though. The amount of calories people need is constant, so supplying a given population with enough food to survive should be easier as time goes on. However for most things, we're not aiming for a fixed outcome but one that scales with GDP. For example medicine - providing people with 1970s levels of care would certainly be cheaper adjusted for inflation than it was in the 1970s, but providing access to modern medicine in modern hospitals performed by current doctors is substantially more expensive, and providing 2050 medicine will be more expensive still.
I think 1970s medical care would be considerably cheaper today. That's what technology does, makes things cheaper and/or allows people to buy more with their dollar.
The standard of medical care you'd receive today for the same price, scaled by inflation, is higher than it was in the 70s.
If you increased debt in the past, interest on the debt then becomes a recurring expense. You then have to reduce spending relative to taxes, not only to pay the interest, but to eventually pay down the principal if you ever want to stop paying the interest.
> several reports recently that the interest on our debt will exceed the defense budget within the next couple of years. Is that not accurate?
This happened, I believe, in FY 2024 [1][2].
We're currently running a 6.5% primary deficit/GDP [3]. With real GDP growing around 2.5% a year [4], that means we need to cut about 4% of GDP, or $1.2tn [5], to stabilise our debt/GDP ratio. That's two Medicaids [6]. (Which would probably trigger a recession.)
It already was in 2024 (if you exclude veteran related costs.) Some of the increase is due to the government debt being larger, and some from interest rates rising. (The average interest rate we pay on our debt has doubled in the past 4 years, from 1.59% in 2020 to 3.28% in 2024.)
It doesn't have to. But GDP is a good proxy for the tax base. If the problem is deficits and spending isn't increasing linearly with GDP, that suggests the problem is with taxation. Not spending.