Washington Post: 'big government is mostly unchanged'
Your periodic reminder that the unbearable largeness of government is ongoing and eternal, despite a half-dozen recent showdowns over federal spending, comes from Sunday's Washington Post. Excerpt:
After 2 1/2 years of budget battles, this is what the federal government looks like now:
It is on pace, this year, to spend $3.455 trillion.
That figure is down from 2010 — the year that worries about government spending helped bring on a tea party uprising, a Republican takeover in the House and then a series of ulcer-causing showdowns in Congress.
But it is not down by that much. Back then, the government spent a whopping $3.457 trillion.
Measured another way — not in dollars, but in people — the government has about 4.1 million employees today, military and civilian. That's more than the populations of 24 states.
Back in 2010, it had 4.3 million employees. More than the populations of 24 states.
These numbers underline a point not made often enough: The stimulus was supposed to be a surge, a temporary increase to be pulled back after the crisis was averted. Instead, predictably, it just created a new baseline level of government spending.
Whole thing here. Link via the Twitter feed of the Post's Dan Froomkin, who comments: "I'm still appalled by this poorly argued anti-government diatribe masquerading as a front-page WaPo story on Sunday."
Serious about balancing the budget without raising taxes? Then read this Reason classic from Nick Gillespie and Veronique de Rugy: "The 19 Percent Solution."