Part II: Measuring the Direction
From the Craig Bushon Show Media Team
If the merry-go-round is the image that frames this investigation, then the federal balance sheet is the first place we should look for evidence. Campaigns are designed to persuade; budgets reveal priorities. Campaign speeches describe what leaders hope to accomplish, while budgets show what government actually did after the applause ended. They record decisions that required votes, signatures, appropriations, borrowing, and implementation. Unlike campaign slogans, they become part of the permanent historical record.
This is where the compass becomes invaluable. A compass does not ask whether one rider enjoyed the journey more than another. It asks whether the ride is moving toward or away from its destination. In the same way, we are less interested in whether one administration produced stronger economic growth during a particular period or whether another inherited unusually difficult circumstances. Those questions matter, but they do not answer the larger question: has America’s long-term fiscal direction fundamentally changed?
To answer that, we must examine what happened over roughly one generation.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the United States entered an era that included the September 11 terrorist attacks, two major wars, the housing collapse and financial crisis, years of historically low interest rates, a global pandemic, extraordinary fiscal stimulus, inflation not experienced for decades, and rapidly rising entitlement costs driven by an aging population. These events were not identical, nor were they equally predictable. Any serious evaluation must acknowledge that presidents and Congresses often govern through circumstances they did not create.
Acknowledging those realities, however, does not eliminate another observable reality. Across Republican administrations, Democratic administrations, unified government, and divided government alike, the federal government’s financial footprint has generally continued to expand. The national debt has not merely increased; it has accelerated. Federal spending has not simply risen because the country has grown larger. It has consistently outpaced population growth over long stretches and has become increasingly dependent on borrowing. Annual deficits that once would have been considered extraordinary have, in many years, become routine. Programs introduced as temporary often become permanent, and emergency spending frequently establishes new baselines rather than returning to previous levels.
This is one of the most important patterns in modern American governance: the cost of maintaining the existing system keeps increasing. That point deserves careful attention because it changes the nature of the debate. Most political campaigns ask voters to compare one proposed agenda against another. Far less attention is devoted to asking a more fundamental question: how much does it now cost simply to keep the federal government operating on its current trajectory? The answer has been moving steadily upward.
Think of a homeowner who discovers that maintaining an aging house costs more every year. The roof requires repairs, the plumbing begins to fail, insurance premiums increase, property taxes rise, and utilities become more expensive. Even if the homeowner makes no major renovations, the cost of simply preserving the status quo continues climbing. Eventually, an uncomfortable reality emerges: standing still becomes increasingly expensive.
America’s fiscal position reflects a similar dynamic. Interest payments consume a growing share of federal resources. Mandatory spending programs absorb an ever-larger portion of the budget before Congress even debates annual appropriations. New initiatives are often layered on top of existing commitments rather than replacing them. As borrowing accumulates, future taxpayers inherit obligations created years or even decades earlier. The result is a government whose financial momentum becomes increasingly difficult to reverse.
Momentum is a powerful force. Anyone who has pushed a heavy truck understands that once it begins rolling downhill, stopping it requires considerably more effort than preventing it from rolling in the first place. Large institutions behave similarly. The bigger they become, the greater the political, financial, and administrative forces required to alter their course.
This is why campaign promises often collide with governing realities. Candidates regularly pledge to reduce spending, eliminate waste, balance budgets, or reform major entitlement programs. Those promises resonate because many Americans recognize the long-term challenges. Once elected, however, governing requires confronting entrenched constituencies, existing legal obligations, agency structures, financial markets, and the political consequences of reducing programs that millions of citizens have come to depend upon. The machinery of government develops its own inertia. Every federal program has beneficiaries, every regulation develops stakeholders, every agency builds institutional interests, and every appropriation creates expectations. Changing any one of those components becomes politically difficult; changing all of them simultaneously becomes extraordinarily rare.
This does not mean reform is impossible. It does suggest that reform is substantially more difficult than campaign rhetoric often implies. The consequence is a political system in which elections frequently produce changes in leadership while producing much smaller changes in long-term fiscal direction than voters may anticipate.
That observation is not intended as a criticism of one political party while excusing the other. In fact, the opposite is true. If this investigation demonstrates anything, it is that assigning exclusive responsibility to one party oversimplifies a much more complicated story. Republicans have overseen significant increases in federal spending, and Democrats have overseen significant increases in federal spending. Both parties have enacted major legislation that expanded federal commitments, and both parties have, at different times, argued that extraordinary circumstances justified extraordinary expenditures. Sometimes those circumstances genuinely were extraordinary. The question before us is different. What happened after the emergency ended? Did the overall trajectory materially reverse, or did the government largely continue moving along the same long-term path, only from a higher starting point?
This is where the merry-go-round returns. Each election introduces new riders, and each administration emphasizes different priorities. One focuses more heavily on tax policy while another emphasizes social programs. One invests more heavily in defense while another directs greater resources toward domestic initiatives. Those differences are real and often significant. Yet when viewed from thirty thousand feet, another pattern becomes difficult to ignore. The platform itself has continued turning. The cumulative size of government has generally continued expanding, the cumulative debt has generally continued increasing, and the cumulative obligations imposed on future taxpayers have generally continued growing. The music changes and the riders change, but the direction, measured over an entire generation, appears far more consistent than many campaign narratives would suggest.
That is why this investigation is not asking readers to judge administrations by their intentions. Intentions are impossible to measure objectively; outcomes are not. A compass does not evaluate speeches. It evaluates bearings.
As we continue this investigation, the evidence will move beyond budgets alone. Fiscal policy tells an important part of the story, but it is only one indicator. To understand whether America has been changing direction or simply changing political leadership, we must also examine the growth of the administrative state, the accumulation of federal regulation, and the expanding role of government in the daily lives of its citizens. Those trends, when viewed together over one generation, may tell us even more than the balance sheet alone.
Series Disclaimer
The Permanent Campaign, the Permanent Deficit: Why Changing Parties Has Not Changed America’s Direction is an opinion and analysis series produced by the Craig Bushon Show Media Team. The purpose of this four-part investigation is to examine long-term historical trends using publicly available government data, budget reports, economic statistics, and other credible sources to encourage informed civic discussion.
This series is not intended to endorse or oppose any political party, elected official, or candidate. Rather than evaluating campaign rhetoric or partisan messaging, it focuses on measurable long-term outcomes over approximately one generation, including federal spending, national debt, institutional growth, and the changing role of government.
Reasonable people may interpret the evidence differently, and readers are encouraged to review primary sources—including Congressional Budget Office reports, U.S. Treasury data, Office of Management and Budget publications, Congressional Research Service reports, and other official government records—and draw their own conclusions.
The views expressed are those of the Craig Bushon Show Media Team and are presented in the spirit of encouraging thoughtful discussion, critical thinking, and greater civic engagement through evidence-based analysis.
