NationStates Jolt Archive

Enter your guess, click below to see the correct answer. Comment. (after you review link.)

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/mwhodges.htm

Commie bastards....

Thiese claims disturb the Hell out of a libertarian like me......

Thiese claims disturb the Hell out of a libertarian like me......
I know how you feel, --% is by the government. So much for a free market, hello public sector.

Edit: Didn't want to give away the answer.

The US Government takes up around 33% of US GDP, which is why I voted for 33%.

I'll have to do my homework s-pool. I'm not sure the govt contributes ANYTHING to the GDP.

While I'm at it maybe someone could help me with another project; I'm told there is a report that measures the efficiency of federal assistance programs in a similar way as private charity can be measured. I think they guys name may be William Simon, but I come up empty. Searching w dial up is painfully slow. I'd be very curious to compare how government 'charity' measures up to privatge charity.

Hey, I guessed right!

Far more guesses than posts. I suppose the socialists don't want to admit that the US is more socialist than private, and the conservatives are just in a state of shock...

I couldn't care less, as I plan to leave soon. :cool:

Yep, you lot should cut down on your military spending (which a ccounts for an enormous amount of the figure, I understand). And your agricultural subsidies. And your industrial tariffs. And your unnecessary law and order spending and general shit-on-civil-liberties shenanigans.

It'd be interesting to see what the figures are for UK, France, China, etc.

I knew that the Republican party was secretly trying to smuggle a socialist agenda into US politics.

A right wing resistance is needed.

Frankly, I'm overjoyed that it's so high, I guessed right, and I am happy to know that our Corporations aren't dominating the world. Our government is. At least our government has something to do with democracy.

I'll have to do my homework s-pool. I'm not sure the govt contributes ANYTHING to the GDP.

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=Unitedstates

Government expenditures as a share of GDP increased less in 2003 (0.4 percentage point to 35.9 percent) than they did in 2002

Based on data from the OECD, the government consumed 15.5 percent of GDP in 2003.

Far more guesses than posts. I suppose the socialists don't want to admit that the US is more socialist than private, and the conservatives are just in a state of shock...
Why do conservatives think that, alone among government spending projects, the military is the only one that is not "socialist"? It is the most socialist of them all - the provision of collective defence.

QUSTION:
How much of our economy is controlled
by federal, state & local government ?
How reliable is this site?

I'll have to do my homework s-pool. I'm not sure the govt contributes ANYTHING to the GDP.

Uh, GDP includes the government spending, by definition.

What I find unusual in this case is the larger share of federal spending compared to local spending. In here, it's the exact opposite; 2/3 of tax revenue is spent by the city governments (municipalities, to be exact). Municipalities generally consist of several hundred thousand to several thousand people. So, what is troubling about the US spending is the lack of local democratic control over the spending. That is, most of the decisions where to spend tax dollars are made by people no one's even heard of, and won't.

What I find unusual in this case is the larger share of federal spending compared to local spending. In here, it's the exact opposite; 2/3 of tax revenue is spent by the city governments (municipalities, to be exact). Municipalities generally consist of several hundred thousand to several thousand people. So, what is troubling about the US spending is the lack of local democratic control over the spending. That is, most of the decisions where to spend tax dollars are made by people no one's even heard of, and won't.

According to the illustration at the bottom of this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product
state spending is a bit over half. One unknown is how much of that is federal dollars paid to the states to spend. Whould that be federal or state spending? (For example, schools)

http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=Unitedstates






Why do conservatives think that, alone among government spending projects, the military is the only one that is not "socialist"? It is the most socialist of them all - the provision of collective defence.

Thanks for the link.

Re: Military, don't confuse government with socialism.

"Why do conservatives think that, alone among government spending projects, the military is the only one that is not "socialist"? It is the most socialist of them all - the provision of collective defence."

Here speaks someone who missed the point completely.

The fundamental idea of conservative government is that its main role is to protect people's rights.

Ergo, military spending is not something inheriently objectionable to conservatives.

Assuming that now we're on the second page we can discuss the stats directly...

Interesting site, but I wouldn't trust a thing it says. Why? Because the guy thinks that the fact that he is a grandfather works in his favour. Hardly good economic practice. He actually looks kind of hysterical, and not at all like anyone who could be trusted to give out impartial economic statistics. Try this instead:

http://carriedaway.blogs.com/carried_away/2003/10/us_government_s.html

Much better. It shows that US government spending is generally rising, but is actually about 30%. Perhaps what the dude behind the link at the start of this thread did was add local spending to government spending, or something like that, to get his 43%, not realising it was already included.

Approximately, the UK is about 40%. Germany is about 45%, and France is about 50% (a little higher than China ;) ). The main difference between the US and the UK is the NHS. Without that they'd be just about the same. I'm not sure why other European countries are higher than the UK.

According to the illustration at the bottom of this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product
state spending is a bit over half. One unknown is how much of that is federal dollars paid to the states to spend. Whould that be federal or state spending? (For example, schools)
Federal, as they are those who levy the tax, and ultimately decide where the revenue goes.

If we think about this a bit more, it's still undemocratic even if the states spend most of the money. The state government isn't very much closer to the citizen than the federal government. It's the counties or cities that spend "locally". Of course, it's a different system here. (Like, cities maintain schools, state maintains only universities. But, the state maintains the police and the roads.)

Thanks for the link.

Re: Military, don't confuse government with socialism.
All government is socialism to a degree, because it was formed by the people and for the people.