When people speak disapprovingly of “big government,” I usually get the impression that they’re referring to the doings of government departments/agencies other than Defense, Social Security and Medicare. So it’s useful every once in a while to strip defense and entitlements out and see just what the government is spending on everything else. These data are from the Congressional Budget Office’s annual review of the budget and economic outlook, released a few weeks ago:
None of this means that we’re not on an unsustainable fiscal path. Plus, state and local spending have risen as discretionary federal spending has slumped. But it’s worth reminding ourselves that our big government is actually a lot smaller (as a share of GDP) than it was in the 1970s.