3 ms·

Federal receipts as a percent of GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S Basically unchanged for 70

Federal receipts as a percent of GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S Basically unchanged for 70+ years, and far lower historically. Meanwhile significant growth in real GDP per capita and therefore real government receipts per capita. The change isn't that the government is collecting less money. They get more than ever. But growth in government spending has outstripped it, and it has been getting worse rather than better.

ethbr1 1y ago
> But growth in government spending has outstripped it, and it has been getting worse rather than better. cough Universal single-payer healthcare with aggressive, adversarial price negotiation.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  That can't be the explanation because it wasn't present in the US before the government was running huge deficits either.
  - ethbr1 1y ago
    As in, the US still doesn’t have it. Hence the propensity to sink growing amounts of GDP into paying an ever-heightening stack of middlemen to provide medical care at market prices... instead of simplifying the stack and saving money. The US government created a mandate, then allowed it to metastasize as health care became more technical and expensive, and is now in the business of sticking its fingers in its ears and pretending there’s not a financial problem. https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo...
    - mananaysiempre 1y ago
      Everyone in that spending pipeline is doing it[1], not just the US government. [1] https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1179450.html https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1179450.html (very long; you’ll need to get to at least part 2 to see the relevance)
grafmax 1y ago
> The change isn't that the government is collecting less money. The government is collecting less spending relative to taxes. A deficit is a difference between the two. Logically addressing either side would improve the deficit. However the ruling class prefers hoarding wealth, financing wars, and cutting social programs.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  Whether you measure it as nominal dollars, real dollars or real dollars per capita, the US government's tax revenue has only increased over time, so the only explanation for why there are huge deficits now and not before is that its spending has increased by even more. Moreover, a major proportion of that spending increase did go to social programs, and the top 50% of incomes pay 97.7% of the federal taxes. The actual problem is that even a lot of the "social programs" don't ultimately go to the poor. They require specific services that divert the money to contractors or landlords, or go to affluent retirees who don't really need the money. And, of course, the defense budget is entirely out of hand as well -- but why should we extract more from the economy to fund things that ought not to be funded?
  - bigbadfeline 1y ago
    > and the top 50% of incomes pay 97.7% of the federal taxes. The bottom 50% of incomes get 2.5% of GDP. Seems proper to me.
    - hollerith 1y ago
      Gemini 2.5 Flash thinks they get 13.9%. When I asked for its source, it replied, "The Distribution of Household Income, 2019," by the Congressional Budget Office.
      - bigbadfeline 1y ago
        They get 2.5% of wealth which is a better estimate of real earnings. The data is for Q3 2024.

ethbr1 1y ago

> But growth in government spending has outstripped it, and it has been getting worse rather than better. cough Universal single-payer healthcare with aggressive, adversarial price negotiation.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
That can't be the explanation because it wasn't present in the US before the government was running huge deficits either.
- ethbr1 1y ago
  As in, the US still doesn’t have it. Hence the propensity to sink growing amounts of GDP into paying an ever-heightening stack of middlemen to provide medical care at market prices... instead of simplifying the stack and saving money. The US government created a mandate, then allowed it to metastasize as health care became more technical and expensive, and is now in the business of sticking its fingers in its ears and pretending there’s not a financial problem. https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo...
  - mananaysiempre 1y ago
    Everyone in that spending pipeline is doing it[1], not just the US government. [1] https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1179450.html https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1179450.html (very long; you’ll need to get to at least part 2 to see the relevance)

grafmax 1y ago

> The change isn't that the government is collecting less money. The government is collecting less spending relative to taxes. A deficit is a difference between the two. Logically addressing either side would improve the deficit. However the ruling class prefers hoarding wealth, financing wars, and cutting social programs.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
Whether you measure it as nominal dollars, real dollars or real dollars per capita, the US government's tax revenue has only increased over time, so the only explanation for why there are huge deficits now and not before is that its spending has increased by even more. Moreover, a major proportion of that spending increase did go to social programs, and the top 50% of incomes pay 97.7% of the federal taxes. The actual problem is that even a lot of the "social programs" don't ultimately go to the poor. They require specific services that divert the money to contractors or landlords, or go to affluent retirees who don't really need the money. And, of course, the defense budget is entirely out of hand as well -- but why should we extract more from the economy to fund things that ought not to be funded?
- bigbadfeline 1y ago
  > and the top 50% of incomes pay 97.7% of the federal taxes. The bottom 50% of incomes get 2.5% of GDP. Seems proper to me.
  - hollerith 1y ago
    Gemini 2.5 Flash thinks they get 13.9%. When I asked for its source, it replied, "The Distribution of Household Income, 2019," by the Congressional Budget Office.
    - bigbadfeline 1y ago
      They get 2.5% of wealth which is a better estimate of real earnings. The data is for Q3 2024.