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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Dietrich who wrote (487746)	6/13/2009 11:26:43 AM
From: i-node	Respond to of 1572910

>> Our deficits are a direct result of budget busting supply side tax cuts. Right.

To: Steve Dietrich who wrote (487746)	6/18/2009 10:39:18 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1572910

Federal revenues as a share of GDP are the lowest they've been since 1950. Federal revenue as a percent of GDP has been fairly steady in that period. A small move down from the average doesn't make for starving anything (and apparently 2008 was not the lowest since 1950 even though it was below the norm). Revenue as a percentage of GDP was very high from WWII on, not low. Also total government spending increased as a percentage of GDP even while federal government spending did not. And perhaps most importantly, there isn't any inherent need for government spending to track GDP. Arguably a richer private sector can rely on the government less. Even if you dismiss that idea, the government can spend the same (or even more) in real terms per capita while declining as a percent of GDP. Many jobs the government does that are considered important do not go up with GDP. Our defense needs don't track GDP, and in fact defense spending as a percent of GDP has declined greatly since 1950. AS per capita GDP goes up, real per person spending on welfare shouldn't need to go up, if anything it could go down. A higher GDP might create more need for infrastructure, but not linearly with GDP. If people become 10 times as wealthy they don't need 10 times as many roads, and they certainly don't need 10 times as much regulatory enforcement. Even by the metric you choose, percent of GDP of the federal government alone, the data simply doesn't show anything that resembles "starving the government". Using more reasonable measures like real per-capita total government spending, and the result has been quite the opposite, a massive and ever growing government. That massive and growing government is the reason for our long term structural deficits. Then the recession, and Obama's big government visions are the reason for upcoming deficits that make recent ones look small. usgovernmentrevenue.com usgovernmentrevenue.com heritage.org