50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph
1–10 of 76 posts
Re: 50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph
#2Unfortunately this graph primarily just shows that government handouts to citizens in the form of safety net programs, medicare, and medicaid have gone up in percentage, that defense has gone down in percentage, and that we don't spend enough (in my opinion) on public transportation- but it only looks at three years!
Instead, look at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's graphs, like this one of our debt and projected debt: http://www.pgpf.org/Chart-Archive/0024_federal-debt-full.asp...
The Peterson foundation used to be an NPR donor. I don't know whether they still are.
Re: 50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph
#3Reality has a liberal bias.
Re: 50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph
#4Reality has a liberal bias.
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Re: 50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph
#5"Everything else" is a bit big, and seeing the trends over time is far more interesting than at 25 year intervals.
Re: 50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph
#6Reality has a liberal bias.
So does entropy (i.e. over time entropy increases).
That doesn't mean it's a good thing, so this is a very poor argument.
Re: 50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph
#7Reality has a liberal bias.
Time has a liberal bias. Last generation's liberal is this generation's moderate.
Re: 50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph
#8The other thing that would be good to see is the percentage of GDP that the spending represents.
Here is one here:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1903_2010...
Re: 50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph
#9So basically: less defense, more insurance, less infrastructure and research. This is the trifecta of basic public goods the federal government is well-suited to provide. Would be nice to tip the scales more in favor transportation infrastructure and basic research grants, with less spent on boondoggle defense programs (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/tag/f-22/) and subsidizing out of control growth in health care costs vs. other first-world nations (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-an-m...) though.
Re: 50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph
#10Interesting that, contrary to what I had assumed, social security is completely flat in its budget share from 1987 to 2011.