Most of us will readily acknowledge that the federal government is growing too fast. How fast? Brian Domitrovic provides some facts:
The basic metric that reflects all this is the level of federal spending. In 2013 the government of the United States spent 55 percent more money — in real, inflation-adjusted terms — than it did in 1999. Economic growth in that 14-year span has been 30 percent. Where government at all levels soaked up 32 percent of national economic output in 1999, it took in 37 percent in 2013 — an increase of nearly a sixth, in less than a decade and a half. By way of comparison, for the first 125 years of this nation’s existence under the Constitution, through 1914, government spending was largely parked between 3 percent and 6 percent of national output.
That it's growing at all in this economic environment isn't so good, but when it's growing too fast we should really be concerned. Problem is, most Americans are not. Mr. Domitrovic suggests that many Americans have gotten used to the idea, and younger folks who've come of age during this time won't see it as a problem at all. There will be a day when no one remembers what it was like not to live under a huge government.
Mr. Domitrovic harkens back to the days of the Ronald Reagan, the tax cut, and a growing economy. Ah, the good old days. Democrats called it "the decade of greed," which showed how little they really understood about incentives and the economy.
What to do? His solution is in the title: Tax Revolt! It’s Time to Learn from Past SuccessHe closes with this:
Tax cuts, stable money, and the rendering of spending and regulation as superfluous are the formula of the supply-side revolution — the Reagan Revolution. They stand sentinel right there, not long ago in our history, as the way to advance through our sluggishness and purposelessness today.
Via.
Can it happen again? I want to be optimistic. All it would take is a few million changed minds.
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