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June 28, 2023

In the 121 years since 1902, the federal government’s spending has increased from 6.9 percent of GDP to over 50 percent recently. Excessive government spending is directly related to tyranny.

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The following chart gives an overview of all government spending in the 20th century:

Chart 2.21: 20th Century Government Spending

The chart shows that federal spending was modest until World War I, when it increased temporarily, only to fall back again in the 1920s.

Roosevelt’s New Deal increased spending but, in the lead-up to WWII, the federal government’s direct spending was less than half of total government expenditures (local, state, and federal). The enormous demands of World War II saw federal government spending peak at just under 52 percent of GDP in 1945.

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Federal spending immediately dropped back to 21 percent of GDP after WWII, and then steadily climbed to a peak of 35 percent of GDP at the bottom of the 1980-82 recession. Thereafter, government spending continued to account for approximately 35% of the GDP until the mortgage meltdown of 2008.

In the aftermath of 2008’s bank and auto bailouts, federal government spending rose to 41 percent of GDP, although eventually moderating to about 36 percent of GDP. However, when COVID hit in 2020, federal government spending went to WWII levels of just over 50 percent of GDP (see here for more details).

Image by Andrea Widburg.

In 2021, the federal government directly employed about 2.85 million people. However, the cost of our federal government extends beyond the direct connection between federal taxes and expenditures. Federal regulations govern how states, territories, and smaller government entities operate. The 50 states along with D.C., the territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.), 19,495 incorporated cities and towns, 3332 counties or parishes, and thousands of school boards and other state and local entities are all effectively federal subsidiaries to one degree or another thru costly federal regulations, expenditures, and police power.

That means that taxpayers aren’t supporting just a couple of million federal employees. As of 2021, 18.28 million people worked for state and local governments in the United States. Furthermore, there are millions of contract workers who provide infrastructure and myriad services to all these governments.

A centralized government is an enclave of laws, regulations, and employees. Many of these employees (courts and police) enforce the onerous regulations that cover almost every aspect of our lives and suck the treasure from the productive populace to finance it. This represents a tyranny of almost absolute control, as the pandemic shutdowns and forced “virus” injections have shown. Biden continues to issue numerous other unconstitutional orders from D.C. Chaos seems to be the goal in the effort to redo America. Do Obama and Biden want to create a dictatorship? (Tucker Carlson’s satirical take is definitely food for thought.)

Could we have foreseen and prevented what’s happened? The Founders, after all, thought our Republic had 200 years before an inevitable collapse. The Founders were pessimistic about the survival of our republic. Franklin said,