Letter Re: Gauging Government Over-Spending

Dear Mr. Rawles,

Thank you for your hard work on the blog. I did some thinking and research today concerning the Federal budget and want to share what I found with you.

How much does the Federal government spend and how do we put this into context? There are several ways to look at this data. First, one can compare the dollars spent today versus those spent in 1962. Using the data from supportingevidence.com, I found: The government spent $106,821,000,000.00 in 1962 (106 billion dollars) according to http://federal-budget.findthebest.com/detail/64/1962. However, adjusted for inflation this would be about 700 billion dollars. The government spent $3,552,000,000,000.00 (3.553 trillion) dollars in 2010. This is 33.25 times larger, accounting for inflation. One might ask, are things 33.5 times better now than in 1962? Are we getting more or less for our money? Is health better? Are we more secure? Are we happier? Are we closer to God?

Still, there are several differences between 1962 and 2010 that we need to take into account. First, the population is bigger and second the GDP is bigger. Accounting for population, in 1962 the government spent about $3,800 per person, adjusted for inflation while in 2010 that same figure was $10,250.00. One could argue that there should have been a savings of scale. Things should be less expensive buying in bulk. We don’t need more warheads, for example to protect the population but we do need more roads. Unfortunately there is not a savings of scale regarding retirement benefits (as in Social Security). Anyway, the government is spending 2.7 times more per person now than in 1962. This is somewhat better but still begs the questions of whether we are 2.7 times better off now and whether we needed to spend $3,800 inflation-adjusted dollars per person even back in 1962.

Finally, we can look at the budget compared with GDP. In 1962 the Federal Budget was roughly 18% of the GDP whereas in 2010 the budget is fully 25% of GDP. Projections are that it will again fall to about 22% of GDP but that assumes lower spending, increased productivity or both. A major assumption is that the size of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will shrink as the “Baby Boomers” die. We are currently seeing a major argument in Congress concerning the size of the budget and what gets cut and what doesn’t. It is clear that any way you look at it, pure dollars, inflation-adjusted dollars, dollars per citizen or size of the budget as a percentage of the money we make, that there has been a gargantuan growth in the budget. Some of this is inevitable because of the aging, retirement and health care costs of a disproportionately large segment of the population, but I would still maintain that there is a huge part of this spending that has gone to

1. Services that we don’t need

2. Complete waste

3. Inefficiency and bureaucracy

4. Services that should not be part of a Federal Budget

As for myself, I plan to:

1. Advocate for cuts on the local, state and federal levels that I personally see as meaningful and appropriate and ethical

2. Re-evaluate my own personal budget to look at my own expenditures and income to see if it is consistent with my ethical and practical values

3. Keep in mind that simply making more money, or spending less, or even preparing for TEOTWAWKI won’t necessarily make me or my family happier, wiser or closer to God.

And to that end I need to work more directly on those aspects. – Mr. Bennington in Pittsburgh