Three-quarters of deficit reduction so far has been cuts

Something for these guys to keep in mind in the next round. The Center for American Progress has a pretty important reminder for policy-makers going into the next round of deficit-reduction talks: They've already done a lot, and most of it has been in cuts.

Since the start of fiscal year 2011, President Barack Obama has signed into law approximately $2.4 trillion of deficit reduction for the years 2013 through 2022. Nearly three-quarters of that deficit reduction is in the form of spending cuts, while the remaining one-quarter comes from revenue increases. (see Figure 1) As a result of that deficit reduction, the projected rise in debt levels from today through 2022 has decreased by nearly 10 full percentage points of gross domestic product. In fact, under today's policies, debt levels in 2022'as a share of GDP'will be only slightly higher than they are expected to be by the end of next year. [...]

So where does all this deficit reduction leave us? Since the start of fiscal year 2011, Congress and the president have cut about $1.5 trillion in programmatic spending, raised about $630 billion in new revenue, and generated about $300 billion in interest savings, for a combined total of more than $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction. The result is a substantial cut in how much publicly held debt the country is expected to hold 10 years from now. Instead of reaching nearly 93 percent of GDP, debt is now projected to total about 83 percent of GDP'fully 10 points lower. And while that won't be enough to finally put the budget onto sustainable footing, it is a massive improvement. In fact, it's about two-thirds of the way toward stabilizing the debt-to-GDP ratio.

That's pretty significant deficit reduction already, particularly considering the still-shaky economic situation of the country. Given the really lopsided composition of that deficit reduction, perhaps the idea of "two dollars in spending cuts for every dollar in revenue" the White House has been pushing, as explained by Gene Sperling, should be flipped.