[quincunx]

So I thought "gov't spending, majority of GDP" was preposterous, but then I looked at the graph at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni...

Looks like it already blipped the 50% mark in WW2 and is quite close now. Seems to (visually) be leveling though.

[pjc50]

Very important question: are pensions counted as "spending" in the breakout of federal/local/state spending? Because if they are then the number will inevitably go up as life expectancy beyond pension age increases.

I'm slightly surprised to see that the War On Terror didn't register as a visible discontinuity on the graph, even as a smaller one compared to WW2. I suppose the money would have been spent on the military anyway.

[imtringued]

What is preposterous about it? If anything we can probably guess that the 40s to 80s were so nice because government spending went up. The 2008 blip was just the bank bailout.

It looks like government spending has stabilized 40 years ago. Considering how much the economy got "worse" from the perspective of the average because China got more powerful since 2000 it's actually strange how the numbers remained stable.

[quincunx]

What is preposterous about it?

You mean why I felt it was preposterous? Well allow me to demonstrate my naivety...

I would have expected 50% to be "socialist Europe" type spending, and indeed, a bit of googling reveals France is at about 60% of GDP right now, Germany at about 50%, Netherlands at 47%... That 60% of all income is determined by the policies and decision making of politicians, apparatchiks and bureaucrats is, I find, shockingly close to a planned economy.

So why preposterous? Because the US, on so many fronts, positions itself in contrast to Europe - free market ideology, small government rhetoric, fiscally conservative. Anyway, obviously, I was wrong.