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"Assertions to the effect of "the government is bigger than ever" are just unsubstantiated hand-waving. Federal spending as a percentage of GDP, excluding inter

"Assertions to the effect of "the government is bigger than ever" are just unsubstantiated hand-waving. Federal spending as a percentage of GDP, excluding interest, social security, and medicare, is down from 15% to 10%. That reflects a real and dramatic shrinking of the scope of government" Excluding my fat, belly, and arse, I've actually lost weight...

rayiner 13y ago
I exclude those things because they're not generally what people think of when they think "government overhead." They're not rooms full of bureaucrats writing pages of regulations nor are they fat-cat contractors. They're transfer payments with very low bureaucratic overhead. Moreover, at least in the case of Social Security, it represents withdrawals of money previously paid into the system. Look at it this way. Say a very small, Milton Friedman-ish society institutes a basic income, funded by a tax. It might have spending as a percentage of GDP of 30%, but would you say it necessarily has a "big government?"
- ACow_Adonis 13y ago
  Maybe its because I'm economic-y, and while measures of "big" and "small" are relative...yes, yes I would. I'd say of course we have to include that as a measure of how much of a role the government plays in the society. This is with no judgment about whether this is a good/bad thing. The things you're excluding (though defense wasn't mentioned), are the main/majority expenditure categories of government. There's even good reason to believe that shrinkage in other areas merely come in some part from natural accounting of a substitution effect as expenditure has been transferred to these areas. I can accept that you're excluding them from analysis because they're not what the man on the street thinks of as "government overhead", but whatever is left over can no longer really be said to be representative of the government we actually have or the role it actually plays in our lives and society.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    I disagree. A federal bureaucracy that costs $500 billion per year to operate has a very different impact, both socially and economically, than a simple transfer payment of $500 billion within the economy.
    - ACow_Adonis 13y ago
      Except in reality you cannot ever separate the two. Money doesn't just happen. Transfers don't just happen. There is no "neutral" way of transferring money. Everything has to happen in a context and via a real material existent system of interests and resources playing off one other... I can comment on a $500 billion "simple transfer" separate from a bureaucracy, government, population and politics of sufficient size and complexity to actually achieve it in the same way that I can comment on how the extra mass of Santa's obesity is hindering him from delivering his presents efficiently at Christmas each year... Which is to say, forming a serious opinion on it implies ignorance about the true nature of what it is we are discussing (a fantastical non-existent entity and an inherently impossible state of affairs). Or at the very least it requires a willing suspension of disbelief purely for the purposes of entertainment...
  - vbuterin 13y ago
    > I'd say of course we have to include that as a measure of how much of a role the government plays in the society. This is with no judgment about whether this is a good/bad thing. Government has a $10 trillion+ impact on the economy by enforcing property rights, and likely a similarly large one by restricting immigration. Neither of those appear in a "budget". So you really have to be extremely careful about what you mean by "government" and "size".
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  The impact each government action has on society is obviously very different. Even changing the neighborhood a school is build can completely change the impacts of the spending. And changing spending from some corrupt bureaucracy into some low overhead redistribution program will certainly change the society where those run. That said, yes, you still have as big[1] a government. Your people will still have to pay the same 30% of the GDP in taxes, and their products will still get more expensive by the same amount. [1] I'm not sure 30% of the GDP constitutes a big government. In fact, I'm quite certain that number is meaningless without context, but well, I'd love to be proved wrong on that.

rayiner 13y ago

I exclude those things because they're not generally what people think of when they think "government overhead." They're not rooms full of bureaucrats writing pages of regulations nor are they fat-cat contractors. They're transfer payments with very low bureaucratic overhead. Moreover, at least in the case of Social Security, it represents withdrawals of money previously paid into the system. Look at it this way. Say a very small, Milton Friedman-ish society institutes a basic income, funded by a tax. It might have spending as a percentage of GDP of 30%, but would you say it necessarily has a "big government?"

ACow_Adonis 13y ago
Maybe its because I'm economic-y, and while measures of "big" and "small" are relative...yes, yes I would. I'd say of course we have to include that as a measure of how much of a role the government plays in the society. This is with no judgment about whether this is a good/bad thing. The things you're excluding (though defense wasn't mentioned), are the main/majority expenditure categories of government. There's even good reason to believe that shrinkage in other areas merely come in some part from natural accounting of a substitution effect as expenditure has been transferred to these areas. I can accept that you're excluding them from analysis because they're not what the man on the street thinks of as "government overhead", but whatever is left over can no longer really be said to be representative of the government we actually have or the role it actually plays in our lives and society.
- rayiner 13y ago
  I disagree. A federal bureaucracy that costs $500 billion per year to operate has a very different impact, both socially and economically, than a simple transfer payment of $500 billion within the economy.
  - ACow_Adonis 13y ago
    Except in reality you cannot ever separate the two. Money doesn't just happen. Transfers don't just happen. There is no "neutral" way of transferring money. Everything has to happen in a context and via a real material existent system of interests and resources playing off one other... I can comment on a $500 billion "simple transfer" separate from a bureaucracy, government, population and politics of sufficient size and complexity to actually achieve it in the same way that I can comment on how the extra mass of Santa's obesity is hindering him from delivering his presents efficiently at Christmas each year... Which is to say, forming a serious opinion on it implies ignorance about the true nature of what it is we are discussing (a fantastical non-existent entity and an inherently impossible state of affairs). Or at the very least it requires a willing suspension of disbelief purely for the purposes of entertainment...
- vbuterin 13y ago
  > I'd say of course we have to include that as a measure of how much of a role the government plays in the society. This is with no judgment about whether this is a good/bad thing. Government has a $10 trillion+ impact on the economy by enforcing property rights, and likely a similarly large one by restricting immigration. Neither of those appear in a "budget". So you really have to be extremely careful about what you mean by "government" and "size".
marcosdumay 13y ago
The impact each government action has on society is obviously very different. Even changing the neighborhood a school is build can completely change the impacts of the spending. And changing spending from some corrupt bureaucracy into some low overhead redistribution program will certainly change the society where those run. That said, yes, you still have as big[1] a government. Your people will still have to pay the same 30% of the GDP in taxes, and their products will still get more expensive by the same amount. [1] I'm not sure 30% of the GDP constitutes a big government. In fact, I'm quite certain that number is meaningless without context, but well, I'd love to be proved wrong on that.