How Severe Are the Ryan Budget’s Spending Cuts?

In a post last month I compared nondefense discretionary spending (NDD) in three budget proposals: the Murray/Ryan budget deal, the administration’s budget, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s (CPC) budget. Nondefense discretionary spending is the part of the budget containing much of our spending on infrastructure, education, and public research and development—the part concerned with investments in the future.

House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan released the House GOP fiscal year 2015 budget proposal today. The chart below shows nondefense discretionary spending as a percent of GDP in FY2007 (the year before the onset of the Great Recession) as a historical comparison to the various budget proposals.

For FY2015, the House GOP budget would adhere to the Murray/Ryan budget deal with NDD equivalent to 2.7 percent of GDP; the president’s NDD proposal is slightly higher at 2.8 percent of GDP and the CPC’s would be 3.8 percent of GDP. However, beginning in FY2016, the House GOP proposes to start slashing NDD spending. By FY2024 they propose that NDD spending shrink to 1.7 percent of GDP—almost half of what it was in 2007, and half of what it was during the Reagan Administration.

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