Now, Federal Government spending in 2010 is what, $3.7 Trillion? Toss in State and Local spending and we get a total government spending figure of around $6.4 Trillion.
That's Trillion with a "T" and, that's every freakin' year. And we somehow can't produce nearly enough public goods?
If that is true, every single elected offical should be tossed into stocks and given a few turns on the rack.
Total government spending is predicted to level out at over 40% of GDP and we are "starved for public goods"?
Krugman, please!!!!
6 comments:
Except how much of the state and federal budgets actually fund public goods? I would guess transfer payments represent a multiple of public good provision.
Well, we are pissing away a giant portion of those trillions in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, to no apparent public good.
I probably wouldn't mind government making up such a large part of the economy if it weren't so terrible at its job.
I bet he'd get really irritated if someone pointed out that, in his example, roads are rival and at least potentially excludable, meaning they are no more public goods than, say, an elevator in an office building.
Repeating what others have said: Today's government is expert at providing private goods and calling them "public goods."
For the life of me, there's nothing more I want from our government, and don't know what Krugman is suggesting. The new services that have excited me in the last ten years have come, mainly, from private businesses on the Internet. iTunes has done more for my happiness than anything the government has done, with the possible exception of keeping alive a friend on AIDS.
Isn't Krugman just pointing out what Downs said in 1960?
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2009337
"Why the government budget is too small in a democracy." 1960 World Politics
Personally, I read the Downs' article and didn't really get where the flaw was. Maybe it has to do with the invalidity of rational political action at the macro-level.
Maybe Munger can comment.
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