Recent Budgets

For today’s post, I created a table of U.S. Federal Budget outlays over time. I know it’s a dry subject, but I think it’s instructive to see how the budget has grown through various administrations – even though, as we all (should) know, it is Congress that creates the budget. The budget process normally begins with the president, who sends a budget request to Congress, and then Congress tinkers with it, adding, deleting, modifying, and finally sends their version of the budget to the president to be signed. The president can only accept the budget in its entirety or reject it. In recent years this process has broken down, and budgets have sometimes been implemented by a series of continuing budget resolutions and allocations for individual government departments. Nevertheless, the outcome still constitutes a budget.

The Federal government’s fiscal year begins on October 1 and runs through September 30. The fiscal year is named after the year in which the budget ends. So, for example, Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, sworn into office in 1981, and sent his first budget to Congress for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 1981, which was FY 1982. Reagan’s final budget was sent to Congress in 1988 for the next fiscal year, FY 1989.

Numbers for the following table are from the Office of Management and Budget: Table 1.1—Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789–2019 and Table 1.3—Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-) in Current Dollars, Constant (FY 2009) Dollars, and as Percentages of GDP: 1940–2021. Parentheses indicate a negative number.

Fiscal Year	Total Outlays (billions)	Previous Year (billions)	Difference (billions)	Growth from previous year	Total growth while in office
Ronald Reagan					53.4%
1982	745.7	678.2	67.5	9.95%
1983	808.3	745.7	62.6	8.40%
1984	851.8	808.3	43.5	5.37%
1985	946.3	851.8	94.5	11.10%
1986	990.3	946.3	44.0	4.65%
1987	1004.0	990.3	13.7	1.38%
1988	1064.4	1004.0	60.4	6.02%
1989	1143.7	1064.4	79.3	7.45%
G. H. W. Bush					12.5%
1990	1253.0	1143.7	109.3	9.55%
1991	1324.2	1253.0	71.2	5.68%
1992	1381.5	1324.2	57.3	4.33%
1993	1409.4	1381.5	27.9	2.02%
Bill Clinton					27.4%
1994	1461.8	1409.4	52.4	3.72%
1995	1515.7	1461.8	53.9	3.69%
1996	1560.5	1515.7	44.8	2.95%
1997	1601.1	1560.5	40.6	2.60%
1998	1652.5	1601.1	51.4	3.21%
1999	1701.8	1652.5	49.3	2.99%
2000	1789.0	1701.8	87.2	5.12%
2001	1862.8	1789.0	73.8	4.13%
G. W. Bush					74.9%
2002	2010.9	1862.8	148.1	7.95%
2003	2159.9	2010.9	149.0	7.41%
2004	2292.8	2159.9	132.9	6.16%
2005	2472.0	2292.8	179.2	7.81%
2006	2655.1	2472.0	283.1	7.41%
2007	2728.7	2655.1	73.6	2.77%
2008	2982.5	2728.7	253.8	9.30%
2009	3517.7	2982.5	535.2	17.94%
Barack Obama					6.7%
2010	3457.1	3517.7	(61.5)	(1.75%)
2011	3603.1	3457.1	146.0	4.22%
2012	3537.1	3603.1	(66.0)	(1.83%)
2013	3454.6	3537.1	(82.5)	(2.33%)
2014	3506.1	3454.6	51.4	1.49%
2015	3688.3	3506	182	5.19%

The chart below displays the data in the above table. The blue line charts expenditures; the brown line is a trendline. The best fit trendline was determined to be exponential with a fit of 0.986.

A better picture of what is happening might be obtained by adjusting all the amounts for inflation. Federal outlays in chained 2009 dollars are charted below. The best fit trendline was still exponential with a fit of 0.952. Stimulus spending after the 2008 real estate/investment banking crash is very obvious.

As the population and economy grow, it is no surprise that Federal spending also grows. So to add perspective, the chart below shows how U.S. GDP has changed over the same time interval. To account for inflation, the chart uses chained 2009 dollars.

Bring in the BUFFs

The Air Force is pulling their B-1s out of the fight against ISIS and replacing them with B-52s. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James says the air campaign against ISIS is "taking a toll on our aircraft, our readiness and our airmen." So it’s time to bring in the BUFFs, as they are informally called. BUFF stands for Big Ugly Fat Fellow. (Okay, the second ‘F’ doesn’t really stand for Fellow, but I try to keep this blog G-rated.)

The B-52 is the oldest aircraft in the Air Force inventory. It entered service in 1955 and the newest airplane still flying was built in 1962. They’ve been upgraded with modern electronics, communications, and high-tech sensors, but they’re still old airframes. In 2015 the B-52 completed 60 years of continuous service. It seems the B-52 is the bomber we always fall back on to get the job done.

We have newer bombers that were supposed to replace the B-52. There was the B-1B Lancer, introduced to service in 1986. When the first B-1 was rolled out of the factory before a crowd of 30,000, the engines wouldn’t start. Design flaws, fuel leaks, and engine problems kept the B-1 out of Operation Desert Storm. The plane had to be debugged before it could be flown on bombing missions.

There was the B-2 Spirit, also called the stealth bomber, introduced to service in 1993 and operational since 1997. It requires a climate-controlled hangar. Its stealth technology is so delicate that the plane can’t fly in the rain lest its stealthy outer coating becomes damaged.

B-52s were used over Viet Nam. B-52s dropped 40% of munitions during Operation Desert Storm. They were used in Operation Desert Strike. They bombed Serb targets in Yugoslavia during Operation Allied Force. They were used in Afghanistan and southwest Asia during Operation Enduring Freedom. They flew missions in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The US Air Force once had 744 B-52s. They’re down to 76 aircraft now. Many were retired when they reached the end of their service life. Another 365 were chopped into pieces as part of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

The Air Force cites several reasons for the B-52 still being in service after so many years. It is an effective and economical heavy bomber in the absence of sophisticated air defense. And there has been no reliable replacement. One study found the B-52’s ready rate averages 80.5% compared to the B-1’s 53.7% ready rate and the B-2’s 30.3% ready rate.

The Air Force intends to keep the B-52 in service until 2045. By then, the B-52 will have been in continuous service for 90 years. They will certainly have earned a retirement and will probably be taken out of service. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be a total surprise to see a few B-52s flying missions beyond even that distant date. The airplane is a rugged, well-built and well-maintained tool of war, and, after all, a 90 year old hammer can still drive a nail.

It Must Be True – It’s On The Internet

The Pyramid of Giza is actually a hangar for an alien space ship. The ship is inside that mountain of granite blocks, its engine humming away and producing “thermal anomalies.” The Internet says so, and the Internet is never wrong. If you read it on the Internet, you can be sure it’s the truth. And because I’m on the Internet, everything I write on this blog is, by definition, totally true. Please keep that in mind.

Another recent piece of news on the Internet says that kangaroo farts are worse for global warming than climate scientists previously believed. I didn’t know that climate scientists had studied kangaroo farts, but now that I’m aware of it, I have to wonder: do fish fart? There are millions of fish in the ocean, and that could add up to a lot of fartage. How about dolphins and whales? After all, they’re mammals, and don’t all mammals fart?

But enough fart-foolery. Here’s another headline: Leonid meteor shower to peak overnight. People! It’s peaking! Tonight! Whenever I read that a rare and visually interesting astronomical event is happening that night, I know it can only mean one thing: it’s going to rain tonight. Doesn’t matter. I’ve lived through enough meteor showers to be able to state unequivocally: meteor showers are completely underwhelming. They go like this: “There’s one, I think.” Sixty seconds passes. “Ooh, I think I just saw another.” Exciting, huh? Also, keep in mind that a lot of shooting stars are nothing more than small bits of old rockets and satellite debris falling back into the atmosphere. You could be ooh-ing and ah-ing over the sight of a 4-40 screw burning up. Not something to write home about. On the other hand, you (quick, before it disappears) may want to make a wish. You never know about these things.

Sundry Observations

I haven’t posted a blog in a while. Notice I didn’t say that I haven’t written a blog in a while. Oh, I’ve been writing, but my writing quality has not been up to the level of mediocrity that my readers expect, so my recent writing remains in a state of un-posted-ness.

I also have many blog posts that I started but didn’t finish. Sometimes what seems like a good idea just doesn’t go anywhere. So today I’m going to pull a few paragraphs out of some un-posted posts and stick them into this post. In other words, allow me to quote – me.

“You may have heard the term “asymmetrical warfare” and wondered what it means. It means we send an airplane that cost $80 million to purchase, and $24,000 an hour to fly, on a mission to drop a $40,000 smart bomb in order to destroy their used pickup truck worth $1500.”

“A recent piece of news on the Internet says that kangaroo farts are worse for global warming than climate scientists previously believed. Prior to this announcement, I did not know that computer climate models incorporated data on kangaroo farts. It begs the question: who collects data on kangaroo farts? And, is this an actual job that people are paid to do? And, eww…”

“In American politics, conservatives believe two things above all else: First, America is the greatest country in the world, and second, that we must elect a president who will make America great again. To which I say, what?”

“Did you know that there is a chemical in some foods called natural butter type flavor? The chemical is diacetyl, and prolonged exposure to its vapors can cause a serious, obstructive lung disease called bronchiolitis or popcorn lung, so-called because diacetyl is or was used in microwave popcorn. Ironically, it has been an ingredient in cigarette tobacco for fifty years. Seriously. I guess tobacco companies figure anyone who inhales cigarette smoke all day long, year after year, doesn’t really care about what a few extra chemicals might do to their lungs.”

“I think the most misleading place name is the Canary Islands, also known as the Canaries. When originally discovered, the islands were home to vast numbers of large dogs. Romans called the islands Canariae Insulae, Latin for “Islands of the Dogs.” They now belong to Spain; the Spanish call the islands Islas Canarias, Spanish for “Islands of the Dogs”. No actual canaries were involved in the naming.”

“How is this possible? I go to the hardware store and buy 6 bolts, 6 nuts, 6 flat washers, and 6 lock washers for a home repair project. The clerk puts them into a plastic bag and I go home. At home, I open the bag and there are 6 bolts, 6 nuts, 5 flat washers, and 4 lock washers. Where did the rest go?”

“At the grocery store, I buy a frozen meat loaf with mashed potatoes entrée.  The picture on the box shows a delicious-looking meatloaf glazed with ketchup and gravy and accompanied by fluffy mashed potatoes. What actually comes out of the microwave is soupy mashed potatoes and a couple of little brown dominos without spots. There is no hint of ketchup.”

That’s enough copying-and-pasting-and-editing for one day. Now I have some posts in my Drafts folder that I can delete. Sayonara, and may your weekend be blissful.

Big Little Lions

The song of the day is Stories from the 2015 album A Little Frayed, A Little Torn by prolific songwriting duo Big Little Lions (Helen Austin & Paul Otten).

Morality Dream

I had an interesting dream this morning. In my dream, a young woman had a crush on me. She wasn’t particularly pretty, nor was she unattractive. I would call her “average looking.” I knew she was too young to be interested in a relationship with someone my age. Nevertheless, she was.

Let me hasten to add that this dream was not about sex. The female in my dream was just a young woman who wanted to be around me, to “hang out” with me. I knew she liked me and wanted more than just friendship, and I enjoyed her company, too. But at the same time, I knew I was being unfair to her, because a future relationship with her was not possible. I knew I was too old for her. That created a dilemma: do I tell her this friendship has to end now, or do I enjoy her company for a while longer?

My dream-friends told me to end it now. They said that letting something continue that ultimately could never be, would be unfair and hurtful to the woman. And my reply to them was can’t I let this continue for a little while? I like her company, and she likes my company. Do I have to end it now?

Some people might like to know which outcome I chose. But that was not the point of the dream. After all, my dream-friends who were telling me to end the friendship were nothing more than a part of me – what Freud called the super-ego, the moralizing part of the personality. And the part of me that wanted the friendship to continue for a while longer was what Freud called the id, the part of the personality that wants instant gratification. The dream was a debate between the id and the super-ego. And dreaming-me, the observer of the debate, was what Freud called the ego, the realist that mediates between the id and the super-ego.

My dream was a morality dream, as if something was saying to me: let me give you this situation and see how you respond. And I responded by admitting that something made me feel good and I would like more of it, while also acknowledging that having it would prove to be a mistake. For me, my choice mattered less than learning that I had a bit of wisdom about the matter. For me, the dream was about the difference between getting what one selfishly wants, and doing the right thing.

I’ve had many “junk dreams” where nothing is gained. Then along comes a dream that makes me think, if there are spiritual beings on “the other side,” perhaps, now and then, they test someone. Maybe, once in a while, they “plant” a situation into a dream to see how the dreamer will respond. It’s just a thought.

Tonight, I will probably go back to dreaming that I’m spending hours wandering through a maze of downtown city streets looking for my car, or a similar dream that is equally pointless. That kind of dream happens much too often.

The Sweet Potato Elucidation

I went to the grocery store to buy some items for dinner. One of the items was a sweet potato. I went to the self-checkout and started scanning my purchases. The sweet potato didn’t have a UPC sticker on it, so I had to type in the name. First I typed sweet potato, but the checkout machine said No result. Then I typed potato, and the machine displayed several choices such as Russet Potato and New Potato, but again, there was no sweet potato listed.

I was stumped for a few seconds, then I tried yam. Success! The checkout machine weighed the yam and sent the item name and price to the register tape. On the register tape, the yam was listed as sweet potato. Of course.

So what’s the deal with yams and sweet potatoes? Are they the same thing, or are they different? I decided to ask Google.

It turns out, they are not the same thing. Yams and sweet potatoes are not only not related, they don’t even have a lot in common. Furthermore, yams sold in U.S. grocery stores are almost never true yams. They’re simply a different variety of sweet potato. So why are they labeled yams?

It’s because of history. Broadly speaking, sweet potatoes come in two varieties called firm and soft. The firm sweet potato was the first to be produced in the U.S., and when the soft variety came along, grocers needed a way to distinguish it from the firm variety. They chose to label the soft variety yams. But they’re not yams, they’re sweet potatoes.

If you’re not confused yet, you should know that sometimes grocers will choose to label their yams as sweet potatoes, which is what they always were.

Orion

It’s still winter in central Virginia, just as it’s winter everywhere else north of the equator. You wouldn’t know it, though. It was 80° today. And for the next 10 days, the forecast is for highs in the 70s. I can hardly wait for spring and the warm weather it will bring (sarcasm). I do, however, dread the coming of summer, because if winter is 80°, how hot will this summer be?

It’s 9 PM and still comfortable as I lug a bag of kitchen garbage to the wheelie bin behind the garage. This bag weighs at least fifty pounds; what the heck did I put into it that is so heavy? Walking back to the house, I look up and notice the constellation Orion, The Hunter. The city’s light-polluted night sky makes it difficult to see constellations. When summer heat and humidity arrive, it will be even more difficult to see them.

But tonight, I stop and gaze at the sky. Orion’s Belt is the first thing I notice: the three stars Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. Then the corner stars: supergiant Betelgeuse, noticeably reddish; giant Meissa, actually a double star; bright Rigel, a triple or quadruple system; and massive Saiph, only 6.2 million years old and destined to explode as a supernova.

South of Orion’s Belt is a faint streak called Orion’s sword. Through a telescope, one would see stars and nebulae, including M42, the Orion Nebula, and M43, a part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. When I was a kid, I was fascinated with the starry sky and bought astronomy books to learn about it. My life might have taken a different path – into astronomy instead of engineering. But that decision was made long ago, and now astronomy is only an interest rather than a vocation.

I brought my eyes down to the back door and stepped back into the house. I closed the door behind me and sat down at the computer. I decided to write a blog post. After a moment’s thought, I typed the title. Orion.

David Gray

The song of the day is The Other Side from the 2002 album A New Day at Midnight by English indie rock singer-songwriter David Gray.

The House

There’s a man named Lloyd Goddard who lives in my city. He lives in a house that has been in his family for four generations. The house was built in the late 1820s to early 1830s. During the Civil War, it was a camp for soldiers because of its strategic location. The house was located near a railroad line between Richmond and Petersburg and was less than a mile from a Confederate depot.

His family bought the house and surrounding 80 acres in 1910. They turned the land into a dairy farm. It was a dairy farm until the late 1950s, when Interstate 95 was built and the state needed the land. So the property was downsized to 7.5 acres, but the house remained standing.

Now the state wants to build a roundabout at a busy intersection near the house, and they’ve told Goddard they need the rest of his land and his house. The state will use eminent domain to seize Goddard’s property, and the house will be torn down. Goddard, 62, has lived in the house all his life. He says the state will take everything he owns.

A house that survived the Civil War and and a number of hurricanes will be demolished because it stands in the path of a road. That’s called progress. And, as Goddard said, “History doesn’t mean anything to progress.”