Talk:Government spending

Seemingly Inconsistent

Side by side are displayed two graphs: total historical US government spending, and historical US government spending broken down by major function. Oddly, these do not match. For example, the graph with functional breakdown shows US government spending at around 25% of GDP in 1980, whereas the graph without breakdown shows US government spending at around 35% of GDP in 1980. Perhaps the graph with breakdown is leaving out some spending, which should be included under a category "other spending"?

Early discussion

"...was projected to be $2,293 billion, or slightly..." I believe that this is supposed to be trillion, not billion. Also, if we are simply talking about Government Spending, then I imagine that we should include state and local spending as well. This would bring the number to about 3.3-3.5 trillion dollars.

Ian Lewis

The more I think about this, the more puzzled I get. $2,293 billion = $2.293 trillion, which more or less makes sense with the 3.3 trillion estimate you give for overall U.S. government spending. - RedWordSmith 05:57, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

what is the USA's GDP for the fiscal year 2004-2005

dead link

The link in the 'references' section is dead.

Relationship to private spending

This article desperately needs coverage of how government spending is related to private spending, i.e. that increases in government spending, regardless of how financed, decrease the ability of private individuals to spend. (sdsds - talk) 06:54, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

usgovernmentspending.com updated data

For various recession related reasons (drop in GDP, stimulus and TARP expenditures) there has been a sizable spike in the spending as a percentage of GDP curve. The data in the graphics sourced from usgovernmentspending.com are now out of date and require updating.

Opponents of government spending

The article mentions John Maynard Keynes and advocacy for deficit spending as economic stimulus. For a balanced perspective it needs an equally prominent mention of the opposing view, i.e. the any government spending, no matter how financed, is harmful to an economy. (sdsds - talk) 21:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

what IS a tax expenditure?

I was trying to look up "tax expenditure" and got redirected here ... If we're redirecting "tax expenditure" here, this article should at least USE the phrase somewhere. For example, "A tax expenditure is an expenditure of taxes; thus it is equivalent to government spending." (I don't know whether that's true; ex hypothesis, I don't know what a tax expenditure is.) (But isn't some government spending not an expenditure of taxes, i.e. deficit spending?) Thanks. Agradman (talk) 13:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if we should even include tax expenditures... that is more than likely suited for tax code or personal taxes.

Redirect from Tax Expenditure is Incorrect

The redirect from "tax expenditure" to "government exenditure" seems to me to be incorrect. A tax expenditure is a term used to refer to "Revenue a government foregoes" by reducing tax rates to advance a particular policy objective (e.g., enhanced savings or increased investment in certain industry). I agree that a tax expenditure is related to "government expenditure", and indeed a form thereof. However, the redirect to the entire page gives the impression it merely refers to the expenditure of taxes. Instead, the redirect should target a specific subsection dealing with tax expenditurs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.108.139.170 (talk) 22:31, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

About usa

This does not seem to have a worldwide view of the subject. My suggestion is to create a new article about the US Spending or put this info in an existing article eg the usa's government deficit?MrK4 (talk) 16:47, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, the name of this article doesn't match the content - it's almost entirely US focused and doesn't cover the range and span of the topic across the world. Dt030 (talk) 01:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)dt030

My research revealed that the data table shown in this article regarding U.S. spending does not accurately represent U.S. spending. Jsg278 (talk) 02:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

a disaster

this article is a travesty. the idea that government spending is specifically a keynesian idea is ludicrous -- keynes talked specifically about deficit spending in the short to medium term to deal with recessions, he had relatively little to say about the long-run size of government. the idea that classical economists believe that public spending is inherently unproductive by definition is utterly insane, this view could only be held by some libertarian maniac who reads nothing of classical economists, but just accepts whatever handwaving about classical economics is vomited out by mises.org.

it's not that wikipedia flatters the "austrian" perspective, although of course you do. (and frankly you go beyond even "the austrian perspective" in terms of what actual economists who like austrian ideas believe, you present vulgar-austrian slogans like "inherently unproductive public sector" that are really just doctrinaire ultra-libertarianism masquerading as economics.) but the real problem is that half your economics pages seem to be written by people who have literally no concept of what the mainstream perspective even is in the first place, they only know these shambolic mises/rothbard/rand/paul strawmen. you monumentally incompetent people actually have written an encyclopedia entry entitled "government spending" that does not even use the phrase "public good." 99.250.12.151 (talk) 23:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• Please see this page and then consider the options available, thanks. ;-) --Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 11:20, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Uncredited source of misleading data. Suggest we delete the entire U.S. government spending section and reference

The table following the line "(The following table represents non-government data analysis. Published spending reports can be found here historical tables.)" is generated from data on the following website, generated by conservative blogger Chris Chantrill: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spend.php?span=usgs302&year=2010&view=1&expand=&expandC=&units=b&fy=fy12&local=s&state=US&pie=#usgs302

The use of the term "welfare" in this table is misleading and confusing, as the common language definition is quite different from the government definition and neither matches the numbers generated for this table (http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/72/How-Much-Does-Nation-Spend-on-Welfare.html).

More important than the uncredited and unclear data is the fact that there's already an enormous and well done article about the U.S. federal budget here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Budget

If I don't hear any good arguments against, I am going to delete this section or at least this table soon and redirect to the federal budget page wiki. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gpmpts (talk • contribs) 20:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)