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The fiscal gap is a projection of all the spending liabilities of our federal government, from pensions to entitlements to military spending. And while our Congress was debating about how to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget over the course of a decade, the fiscal gap grew by $11 trillion.

In the course of that year, the U.S. government’s fiscal gap — the true measure of the nation’s indebtedness – rose by $11 trillion.

The fiscal gap is the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue. It captures all government liabilities, whether they are official obligations to service Treasury bonds or unofficial commitments, such as paying for food stamps or buying drones. …

The U.S. fiscal gap, calculated (by us) using the Congressional Budget Office’s realistic long-term budget forecast — the Alternative Fiscal Scenario — is now $222 trillion. Last year, it was $211 trillion. The $11 trillion difference — this year’s true federal deficit — is 10 times larger than the official deficit and roughly as large as the entire stock of official debt in public hands.

This is what happens when one third of the nation is on one form of welfare or another. Yes, there are problems in military spending. There are problems, no doubt, in all areas of government spending. But what’s driving America’s debt and deficit problems are obligations made to social programs that are on cruise control as they get bigger and bigger.