Читать книгу Northern Light: Lessons for America from Canada's Fiscal Fix - Robert P. Murphy - Страница 26

When it comes to diagnosing a government’s fiscal problems, it is ultimately spending that is the great driver. It is true that government must administer tax policies sensibly as well, and this is the topic of the next subsection. Yet the only reason government needs taxes in the first place is to finance its spending decisions. There is always the temptation that a democratic government will cater to the general public by delivering apparently “free” gifts: Nobody likes taxes, but spending per se is quite popular indeed.

Regardless of how it is financed, government spending diverts real resources away from the private sector and into channels decided by the political process. For example, if the government decides to spend billions of dollars putting a space station into orbit, then there is less steel, computing power, fuel, and engineers’ and scientists’ time available for other purposes.

To observe that government spending redirects resources away from uses chosen by consumers and producers doesn’t by itself prove that all government programs are a waste of money; it does, however, underscore the need to be very cautious with government spending. At the very least each spending program should be subject to some fairly stringent tests to ensure that the damage it does to the economy’s wealth-creating capacity is outweighed by the benefits it creates.

The United States is currently in the midst of an alarming and almost unprecedented level of federal government spending. As figures 1.1 and 1.2 illustrate, federal spending as a share of the overall economy is currently at a level not seen since the height of World War II. Figure 1.1 shows nominal federal expenditures in such a way that the slope of the line reflects the rate of increase. As you can see, it is a very steep rise.

Figure 1.1 US federal government spending, FY 1901–2011 (semi-logarithmic scale)