1. Major components of the "fiscal cliff":
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| Source: DB |
2. Some major recent "unplanned" expenditures of the federal government:
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| Sources: USAToday, Bloomberg, WSJ, AEI |
The fiscal cliff numbers pale in comparison. Clearly this is not a fair comparison because these other expenses are spread over a number of years. Nevertheless it is important to keep the relative magnitude of these expenses in perspective.
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