Biden's Massive Stimulus Is About Politics, Not the Economy

5.15 trillion sure seems like a lot of money, but what makes the pandemic spending "Huge" in absolute terms is the continued growth in debt by 1) the consistent inability of the federal government to limit itself to only the revenue it has, and 2) the size of U.S. overall debt in comparison to the size of the economy.

Not only are the pandemic stimulus packages larger than the entire U.S. annual budget but they also increased overall spending from $4.4 trillion to $10 trillion on an annual basis.

According to the Congressional Budget office, the U.S. public debt that we all owe as citizens was $16.8 trillion in 2019, which represented 79 percent of U.S. GDP. Adding $5.15 trillion makes it $21.95 trillion and larger than the entire economy.

Since the GDP total includes what the government spends in addition to what one normally thinks of as good and services produced by the U.S., e.g. by the private sector, this increase in government spending has resulted in an all-time high portion of the GDP that is related to government spending or 44 percent of total GDP. So that means a growing and very significant portion of the U.S. economy is based on spending "Priorities" determined by D.C. politicians.

If one removes "Mandatory" spending, interest, and deficit spending, the amount of funding actually available for discretionary spending in 2019 was only 5.4 percent of the budget.

If one adds in mandatory spending and removes deficit spending, the amount of money actually available for discretionary spending in 2019 was only 25 percent of the budget.

This can have a serious impact on retirees and the economy since retirees will have less money to spend.
 

https://spectator.org/biden-covid-stimulus/