Do you think that the government is spending money faster and faster? It is.

I was browsing the budget’s historical tables yesterday when I realized that it took 16 years for the federal government to go from spending $1 trillion a year to spending $2 trillion a year (that’s 28 years, if you look at the data in real dollars). It only took seven years for the federal government to go from spending $2 trillion to spending $3 trillion (that’s six years in real dollars).

And now listen to this: Without taking into consideration how much health-care reform — or any of the other crazy new programs the administration is likely to come up with in the next few years — is going to cost, it will only take five years for the federal to go from spending $3 trillion to spending $4 trillion. And another five years to go from spending $4 trillion to $5 trillion. Check out the Mid-Session Review data.

Here is a visual: