Talk:2010 United States federal budget

OTHER = 2nd largest Mandatory Spending?
Can anyone break that down into something more useful. OTHER should never be in the top 3, and rarely in the top 10. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.234.218.46 (talk) 21:31, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Where are the moderators for this page
Pie chart is basically useless. change it.

Federal law requires SS to be off budget because its fully funded. Why are we still using a chart that shows it on budget? Such on budget charts hide where the money is really going and use the SS funds to hide the real debt..--Sattmaster (talk) 14:17, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Link
The link that purports to be an analysis of the 2010 Federal Budget is not an analysis of the 2010 federal budget. It is titled "The Economic Crisis and the Fiscal Crisis: 2009 and Beyond" and it focuses more on the economic landscape and the federal 'bailout' bills, rather than Obama's budget proposal for 2010.

2009 vs 2010: Budget article discrepancies
Comparing this 2010 United States federal budge page to the 2009 page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget, is confusing. For example, the 2010 article says: "Estimated receipts for fiscal year 2010 are $2.381 trillion, an increase of 8.9%.", whereas the 2009 article says: "Estimated receipts for fiscal year 2009 are 2.7 trillion". In other words, the 2010 receipts don't *appear* to really be an increase of 8.9% over 2009. Or is it an increase in forecasts? If so, that could be more clear. Additionally, the 2010 article states that mandatory spending at $2.184 trillion was a decrease of 17.9%, even though the 2009 article says that mandatory spending was only $1.89 trillion for fiscal 2009. Anyone care to reconcile or explain these discrepancies? -Torrents, 26Mar09

Not POV? Perhaps we should have some crunched numbers from the Republican side of things, this seems to be straight from the Obama website. -Galactic Imperial 23-4-09 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.209.233.222 (talk) 05:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * A recent addition has the debt rising to 100% of GDP. In the EU, 70% is the maximum allowable. The annual deficit is, well, large. In the EU, 3% of GDP is allowable. There should be something about this, I suppose. But contrasting could be considered pov if not handled properly. Student7 (talk) 11:26, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Another discrepancy between the 2009 and 2010 budget pages is the budget for the DOD. In 2009 the DOD was listed separately from the budget for the "Global War on Terror" (which is called "Overseas Contingency Operations", apparently, in 2010). This fact is not entirely clear, despite the note after the DOD budget line - due mostly to the change in name. The 12.7% increase in budget is incredibly misleading. If you take the DOD budget for 2009 and add to it the GWOT budget, the increase is only .4%. Additionally, I can't find any numbers that lead to the quoted 12.7% increase; taking the DOD budget from the 2009 page yields a 28.7% increase.

I would suggest putting an asterisk after the budget number leading to a note that says something to the effect of: "The 2010 DOD budget includes 'Oversea Contingency Operations' while the 2009 budget does not. The 2010 DOD budget excluding Overseas Contingency Operations is $533.7 Billion, a +3.5% change". Thoughts? Prnd3825 (talk) 02:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The current part of the article regarding the differences between 2009 and 2010 budgets reads like a forum post or a DNC editorial. It needs fixing. I'd do it, but I'm no good at it, unfortunately. 89.142.30.220 (talk) 21:47, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The numbers for mandatory spending don't add up or match the GPO's numbers (reference 1 in the article). If you change 677.95 (which looks like a typo? nothing else uses 5 sigfigs) to 695 (which is what the GPO says), then the sum works out, but the percentage change at the top doesn't. Looking at the numbers in the table on page 119 of the GPO doc, I see a change from 2009 to 2010 of (2009+164+11)/(2516+139+4), which is a reduction of 17.9%, not an increase of 15.6%! If the increase is due to something not listed here (perhaps the DOD change mentioned above?) this should at least be made clear. 98.216.109.205 (talk) 19:04, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Some considerations
So far, this article seems to have escaped controversy. I will try to keep it that way! But there are some things that might be mentioned. As do all White Houses (for political reasons I don't quite grasp), the projected income is so exaggerated that no one, not even the White House, can support these figures with a straight face. For example, income (taxes) for this year is based on a GDP increase although we are in the middle of a recession. Therefore the actual deficits will be much much higher than those expressed here.

This year's budget deficit ($1.8 billion) will be four times last years. Projected budgets have the government borrowing one half of the money for this year. "Only" one-third for next year. Assuming robust economies (raising the question - if the economy is so robust, why are we borrowing at all?).

No room here for this comment, but Defense spending is due to drop to a lower percentage of GDP by 2016, than before WWII. Student7 (talk) 21:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, should they be "estimated receipts" or "forecast receipts"? After all, this is still 2009...  TastyCakes (talk) 22:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

[New comment] Much is being written about the power and effectiveness of public employee unions. At all levels of government, compensation including salaries, benefits, and pensions are at all-time highs and often exceed comparable jobs in the private sector. Example, 17% of Federal employees now make over $100K/yr.

I am not sure this is being written in the right place, but the Wikipedia article on the US budget seems to analyze the budget only by Federal department. (This much for DOD, this much for DOE, etc.) Could the article also show the planned expenditures by what we're buying? Say, entitled payouts to citizens, vs. compensation to government employees? Military hardware and road construction?

Muellerd (talk) 16:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)D.W. Mueller
 * Hmm well if I understand you correctly, I don't see any problem with the second part, you're basically asking for more detail on the budget break down, is that right? As for the first bit, I'm not sure this would be the right article for it...  Perhaps a new article like US Federal employees could be created?  TastyCakes (talk) 18:16, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Half the budget borrowed
I'm pretty sure that half the current budget is being borrowed. And half the states take is from the fed. Since it is being dispensed in handfuls to the states (remember Medicade, School subsidies, roads, and the other stuff the states get from the fed but manage), I believe the story that the states are getting half of their money from the feds. This shouldn't really be that much of a surprise. The funding was really quite high already. All it took was an exceptional push this year to put it over 50%. I agree that George Will may not be the unbiased observer to quote from. But then, who is? Student7 (talk) 00:57, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

105 Billion Other
Where is that additional 105 billion other discretionary spending coming from? I can't find it in the budget proposal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.21.171.30 (talk) 11:27, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * There were some categories gained and some lost. I am thinking that some of them were included in the "Other" category in other years. I wish it weren't so hard to go through and find the numbers myself in the actual budget, but it's a bit overwhelming. Siskind, Rica (talk) 18:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

900 Billion - Universal Healthcare
At what point to we add this item? After a bill is signed into law? http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/DN-healthcare_10nat.ART.State.Edition2.4bcc128.html --Robapalooza (talk) 14:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Pie chart
I suggest replacing the large pie chart (representing spending by category) with something else. At the moment it is incredibly hard to get any useful information from the chart. There are too many slices and the colors look very much alike. What about marking each slice with a number and connect that number to the list. 1(on the pie chart) = 1 (on the list). 1. social security = 1. 19.63% 2. department of defence = 18.74%

etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.90.255.33 (talk) 02:17, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Speaking as someone who tried to get info from the chart, I agree completely. This chart is unusable. Numbers would be better, or labels.Pdronsard (talk) 03:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree the pie chart is wrong and unreadable. I made a better pie chart in Excel, but I don't know how to up-load it .... please help. sfnoon 12:44, 29 May 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.65.20.132 (talk)
 * Agree. Ask a mod.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ericg33 (talk • contribs) 09:33, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I would try to sort this out, but short of a color spectrum analyzer, I couldn't acomplish with any sense of accuracy. The pie chart is the keystone for anyone's first landing on this topic. Could someone with the link between two, PLEASE FIX THIS. Thanks,

I also agree. Need a better chart. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.194.10.11 (talk) 15:07, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The pie chart is useless as it exists. I'm tempted to delete it so someone will fix it with an intelligible graph. This was called out in 2010.

Dashes and minus signs
I found this:
 * $663.7 billion (+12.7%) - Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
 * $78.7 billion (-1.7%) - Department of Health and Human Services

I changed it to this:
 * $663.7 billion (+12.7%) – Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
 * $78.7 billion (&minus;1.7%) – Department of Health and Human Services

I'd expect the fact that en-dashes should be used, rather than hyphens to be widely known by now. And to use hyphens instead of minus signs is to be as bad as print journalists. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:57, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Removed Propaganda Reference
I removed a quote from thinkprogress.org. According to the Wikipedia Article, "Think Progress is a blog edited by Shakir that 'provide[s] a forum that advances progressive ideas and policies.'" The first page you see when visiting http://thinkprogress.org would make it clear to anyone that it is not a npov or reliable source. If you want to use something reliable http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/us/politics/20budget.html?_r=1 is the source that the blog linked to. 138.67.4.176 (talk) 17:22, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of receipts section
I see that this has recently been deleted: if the content is not posted here, where would it go? Thanks, BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 02:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

TARP and Financial stabilization efforts
The list of budget items currently contains "TARP" and "Financial stabilization efforts," but both are cited at $0 billion, or a decrease of 100%. If these items constitute 0% of the budget they shouldn't be listed as budget items for 2010. Hyrden (talk) 16:48, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Past/historical tense?
This article is mostly written in the present tense. My recollection is that articles should tend to be written in the past tense or from an historical perspective. I cannot find a policy page that tells me if I am right or wrong, however, so I am placing the issue here (on the talk page) rather than editing the article.

An example of tense that I believe should be changed: The first sentence of the article currently reads (as of 2 March 2011), "The United States Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2010, titled A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise, is a spending request by President Barack Obama to fund government operations for October 2009–September 2010."

These events are long since completed and I believe that "was" is a more appropriate voice than "is". On the other hand, I cannot find any clear guidance on the subject. I have found a few things that tend to suggest that past tense is preferred but not required.

WP:RECENTISM suggests that editors should be aware of historical perspective but does not go so far as to explicitly suggest that articles are written in the past tense or with an historical "voice", if you will.

I found a talk page from the Manual of Style where multiple editors suggested and liked the idea of providing guidance about tense. Those editors also seem to endorse the idea of writing in past tense when speaking about historical events.

Multiple pages suggest avoiding "statements that will age quickly" or similar advice. See also WP:DATED and WP:RELTIME. Unfortunately, none of these explicitly say whether or not articles about past events should be in the past tense. All of the warnings against phrases such as "soon" and "currently" have a corollary, however: an object or event that will quickly change from "is" to "was" should probably be described as "was" in any article.

Ironically, the clearest direction (that I have found) about how to write about actual historical events comes from a discussion about how to write about historical fiction. In the essay, Writing better articles, the authors state, ""discussion of history is usually written in the past tense". Nevertheless, "usually" is not the same as "should be" or "must be", so I am still unsure whether Wikipedia has a policy of, or even a strong preference for, past tense.

Therefore, I punt this issue to you: the one person who stumbled onto the 2010 United States federal budget page, accidentally clicked the Discussion tab, and read this section (probably out of boredom).

hunterhogan (talk) 16:23, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

More Propaganda?
I don't understand the claim "The 2009 deficit includes the cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program ($154 billion in 2009),[9] the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ($202 billion in 2009, $353 billion in 2010, and $232 billion in 2011 forward[10]), and the 2009 Omnibus spending bill ($410 billion)." Money is fungible, yes? So how can one possibly assign any dollars to any particular programs? Is this claim any more true than, say "The 2009 deficit includes costs generated by the war in Iraq" or "the 2009 deficit includes shortfalls due to Bush era tax cuts"? Agent Cooper (talk) 15:57, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Deficits don't include or exclude any specific programs, so the entire paragraph was effectively a category error and I've removed it. One thing I didn't change, but seems odd, is that the section seems to be talking about the 2009 deficit, when this is the article on the 2010 budget. Not sure what's up with that, but I don't routinely follow this particular series of articles. --RL0919 (talk) 16:36, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

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