It can’t be stressed enough how much our projected deficit problem basically fixed itself while most of Washington was trying to scaremonger the debt to justify cutting benefits. Paul N. Van de Water at CBPP did the math and found that since the recent round of deficit hysteria began in back in 2010, the CBO 10 year spending projection on Medicare and Medicaid has actually dropped by roughly $900 billion.

A funny thing happened while Washington debated how Medicare benefits must be cut to reduce long-term projected spending. Three years of extremely slow growth naturally reduced projected Medicare spending by a substantial amount. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, projected Medicare spending is now roughly half a trillion lower than it was when the deficit mania first started a few years ago.