Six Charts Showing Just How Much The Government Has Grown
November 3, 2019 in News by RBN Staff
source: www.zerohedge.com
by Tyler Durden
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
Federal spending and federal taxation in the United States set new records in 2019. And the federal budget deficit swelled to more than a trillion dollars. Europe is in the middle of an enormous spending binge. But apparently hard-core laissez-faire libertarian purists have taken over the world’s governments.
At least, that’s the case in the minds of many leftists and conservatives who have convinced themselves that “market fundamentalists” have conquered the world’s institutions, and have enacted a global regime of near-zero taxation, free trade, and almost totally unregulated markets.
As one writer at The Guardian assures us, the UK must end the nation’s “generation-long experiment in market fundamentalism.” Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson insists that American policymakers “worship” markets and have a near-religious devotion to capitalism.
The neoliberal takeover is so complete, in fact, that we’re told neoliberals are the ones really running the Labour Party. Meanwhile, sociologist Lawrence Busch informs us of a “neoliberal takeover” of higher education. “Free-market fundamentalists,” Busch contends, have transformed America’s colleges and universities into swamps of capitalist obeisance.
By What Metric?
But whenever I hear about how government intervention in the marketplace is withering away — to be replaced by untrammeled markets — I am forced to wonder what metric these people are using.
By what measure are governments getting smaller, weaker, and less involved in the daily lives of human beings?
In this country, at least, this case certainly can’t be made by consulting the data on government taxation and spending.
From 1960 to 2018, federal tax receipts per capita increased from $3,523 to $5,973, an increase of 70 percent.
