Talk:Government spending - Misplaced Pages

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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"?

That's because the first graph includes state and local spending while the second graph does not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.40.209.51 (talk) 04:36, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

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 The data in the graphics sourced from usgovernmentspending.com are now out of date and require updating.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. 11:20, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Wow, you guys really seem to be upset about libertarians, when the vast majority of what i read on wikipedia, especially relating to economic subjects, goes nowhere near presenting the libertarian position on things. I think that you guys are just being a bit delusional. If you see something that is wrong, change it. Stop complaining that other people disagree with you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.40.209.51 (talk) 04:40, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I cleaned it up a little, and added an expansion tag where we should probably talk about savings from infrastructure investment. I had a source about that somewhere.... —Cupco 03:28, 2 October 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/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)

Footnote 15 problem

The OECD source referenced in footnote 15 is generating a blank table with no actual numbers. There might be something wrong there with a need to update to a different source for the data. TMLutas (talk) 19:38, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Update: I corresponded with the folks there and there is apparently a methodology change and they don't expect to have US data anytime soon. Perhaps BEA should be used instead? TMLutas (talk) 18:35, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Education spending

The statement "Similarly, public subsidy of college tuition will increase the net present value of income tax receipts because college educated taxpayers earn much more than those without college education." is not verifiable by the source provided. I'm removing it, alone with the graph (which serves no other purpose than to support that statement), that states "Government investment in college tuition subsidies usually pay for themselves many times over in additional tax revenue." A discussion on it is taking place at Talk:Tax_policy_and_economic_inequality_in_the_United_States#Subsidy_of_college if you wish to discuss at a central location or offer a supporting source. Morphh 16:08, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Figure 2 on page 45 of the original source . Aare you seriously claiming that an up-front investment in college of the same order of magnitude as its annual income increase outcome doesn't return the investment? What about the returns to aggregate demand growth from increased consumer spending? EllenCT (talk) 23:46, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

That figure does not support the material. I created a discussion for this topic. It would seem to make sense to have it there, instead of several different pages. Morphh 23:52, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

It most certainly does. Why do you say it does not? If you insist on deletions from multiple articles, then you are free to copy my replies to whatever other places you want them to go. EllenCT (talk) 23:59, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

That chart shows that higher education leads to higher income. It doesn't say anything about government subsidies - WP:OR. Morphh 00:05, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

What effort have you made to check your hypothesis (that government subsidy of higher education doesn't lead to higher education -- really???) with the peer reviewed literature? EllenCT (talk) 00:25, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I never made that hypothesis, nor is it the hypothesis put forward. Morphh 00:28, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

And we go round and round. Note how EllenCT tried to make it seem that editors are arguing about whether or not government subsidize college, when her starting point inserted on many pages is that "Government investment in college tuition subsidies usually pay for themselves many times over in additional tax revenue" notwithstanding she cannot provide a single citation that says that. Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying.Mattnad (talk) 00:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

This debate about education spending, which is one small portion of the budget for most governments, is way off-topic for the article. Keep in mind that under WP:TITLE, specifically WP:PRECISION, policy says "titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, ...." Well, the WP:TOPIC of this article is government spending as a whole – and precision means we must not include education spending or student loan spending or the results of government spending on education or any other small aspect of government spending in the educational field nor even pot-hole repair. My gosh, government spending includes pensions to retired government employees – does the fact that such spending enables them to spend time contributing to Misplaced Pages mean that this is a positive result that should be included in the article? (Assuming we have RS to support such a statement.) I hope this example shows how seeking to show what benefits or dismal results arise from government spending are not germane to the article. – S. Rich (talk) 07:20, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

On the contrary, it is pertinent because of the examples of government spending which reduce government debt the most, education, infrastructure, and health care top the list. EllenCT (talk) 05:22, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Sources copied from my talk page

Secondary peer reviewed source from 1973, secondary peer reviewed source from 2010, popular treatment, long read popular treatment, left-wing, centrist, right-wing, policy response. Now it's your turn. What did you come up with in years compared to what took me less than a day, and what does that say about our relative WP:COMPETENCE? EllenCT (talk) 02:39, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Wow. Those citations are completely off the mark. Not a one even comes close to supporting your statement "Government investment in college tuition subsidies usually pay for themselves many times over in additional tax revenue". I can't be sure if you're serious. Two don't even deal with the United States. Either you cannot understand the question, or you know you don't have anything to support your POV.Mattnad (talk) 03:41, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

You are mistaken. They all support the statement. Why do you think I've been adding their conclusions to both general and US-specific articles? EllenCT (talk) 03:43, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

You have been adding your conclusions to articles and pushing a POV without the benefit of reliable sources to back it up. I can't guess at your motivation.Mattnad (talk) 10:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

The NYT ref does not support the material. The "right wing" ref above does not support the material. As I read each of these refs I wonder if any of the refs support it. I'd rather not waste time reading material that is not relevant. Capitalismojo (talk) 15:57, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

It most certainly does. Why don't you read the math in the secondary sources if you can't amortize? EllenCT (talk) 05:23, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

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