Big Government: It Needs to Be Said
Steven Thomma, in a March 5, 2009 article for McClatchy Newspapers, writes a needed story in the midst of all debate regarding government spending: “It only looks different: Both parties love big government.”
Republicans say they’re outraged that Obama would “borrow and spend” his way to a new behemoth government. But they borrowed and spent their way through the ‘80s and the current decade. And they love big government — when it’s at the Pentagon.
Democrats from Obama on down insist that they don’t like big government, that they’re just forced into a temporary spending spree by the recession. But Democrats love big government as well, when it’s for social programs such as universal health care.
“The basic difference between Democrats and Republicans in recent decades is which aspect of government spending they prefer,” said Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. “With the Republicans, it’s defense. With the Democrats, it’s education, environment, health care etc. That’s been the major difference between the two parties going back to Reagan.”
The numbers tell the tale.
In his eight years, Republican Ronald Reagan increased government spending by 69 percent, led by a 92 percent increase in defense spending as he built up the military to confront the Soviet Union. (These numbers aren’t adjusted for inflation.)
With the economy growing by the time he left office in 1989, the size of the government as a share of total economic production had shrunk slightly, from 22.2 percent to 21.2 percent.
Democrat Bill Clinton increased government spending by 32 percent from 1993 to 2001, brought down largely by the rapid slowdown in defense spending after the Cold War ended. Defense spending grew by just 4 percent during the Clinton years.
The combination of restrained growth in government and a booming economy meant that government’s size as a percentage of the economy dropped from 21.4 percent to 18.5 percent in the Clinton years.
George W. Bush boosted government spending by 68 percent in his eight-year presidency, spearheaded by a 126 percent increase for defense as he waged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush’s spending totals don’t include the $700 billion bank bailout added last fall to his final fiscal year, or the $787 billion stimulus package added early this year.
By the time he left office, Bush’s government had grown as a share of the economy from 18.5 percent to 22 percent.
While he relies on optimistic assumptions about the economy, Obama forecasts that he’ll raise spending this year and next, then ratchet it back until it again represents 22 percent of the economy at the end of his first term.
