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As US tax rates drop, government’s reach grows

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mwkruse
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Christian Science Monitor: As US tax rates drop, government’s reach grows

P25a_popup Study: 1 in 2 Americans now receives income from government programs.

Maybe the era of big government isn’t over, after all.

As Americans finish their annual tax-filing flurry to meet a Tuesday deadline, it is true that tax rates are lower than they were a few years ago. But according to a different yardstick, the federal government’s reach is expanding.

Slightly over half of all Americans – 52.6 percent – now receive significant income from government programs, according to an analysis by Gary Shilling, an economist in Springfield, N.J. That’s up from 49.4 percent in 2000 and far above the 28.3 percent of Americans in 1950. If the trend continues, the percentage could rise within ten years to pass 55 percent, where it stood in 1980 on the eve of President’s Reagan’s move to scale back the size of government.

That two-decade shrink-the-government trend now appears over, if for no other reason than demographics. The aging baby-boomer generation is poised to receive big payments from Social Security and government healthcare programs. …

Comments

4 responses to “As US tax rates drop, government’s reach grows”

  1. Virgil Avatar
    Virgil

    I almost blogged this but the getting sick to my stomach got in the way. It’s terrible; dependence on the government equals control and power, so I am not sure what to think of the next 5 decades in this country. Why do folks insist on learning the hard way?

    Reply
  2. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Five decades is a long time. Will new societal configurations spring up that divert us away from this dependency or will we just fizzle out into a morass of entitlements? It will be interesting to see what develops.

    Reply
  3. Virgil Avatar
    Virgil

    Michael, it may be a long time, but to me it seems like entitlements sneak in slowly, over time. Look how income taxing is now the de-facto way of taxing, after so many years of doing it…it becomes second nature.
    It’s scary.

    Reply
  4. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    I hear ya, my friend. It can be look an alcoholic who goes deeper and deeper until he crashes. Then change has to happen. I hope we don’t go there.

    Reply

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