"John D. Giorgis"
>Sorry, but this is not totally true...... the number of employees is >an
>off way of measuring the size of the government.
Why? It's a very good way to measure the efficiency of a company?
>As it is, the US is employing less GI's, and also is hiring *a lot* >more
>contractors.
The numbers I quoted are civilians. Those are the standard numbers that are
quoted.
>Toss the contractors back into the mix, and the government still >looks as
>big as average.....
But, what the government has done has changed quite a bit. Its reduced its
overhead to 3% in its biggest area of expenditure: Social Security. That's
not half bad.
>
>The true measure of government size is percent of GDP, and that has
>continued its steady upward climb.
Where do you get those numbers? The historical expenditures by the Federal
government as a fraction of GDP that I have is:
1930 3.3
1935 9.2
1940 9.8
1945 41.9
1950 15.6
1955 17.3
1960 17.8
1965 17.2
1970 19.4
1975 21.4
1980 21.7
1981 22.2
1982 23.2
1983 23.6
1984 22.3
1985 23.1
1986 22.6
1987 21.8
1988 21.5
1989 21.4
1990 22.0
1991 22.6
1992 22.5
1993 21.8
1994 21.4
1995 21.1
1996 20.7
1997 20.0
1998 19.7
1999 est 19.7
2000 est 19.4
2001 est 19.0
2002 est 18.4
2003 est 18.3
2004 est 18.1
While there are probably hard figures for '99 available and will soon be for
'00, but this is what I have. I'd guess that the final percentages would
be a bit lower, because the GDP grew a bit faster than expected. Also, one
sees that the post WWII peak was in '83. And, if you go to
http://sun00781.dn.net/man/docs/fy00/historical/
you will find that the years I cut out followed the trends of the five year
intervals...with the exception of a fast ramp up around '42.
As a % of GDP, government expenditures as a percentage of GDP fell 14%
during Clinton's 8 years from the average of Reagan/Bush year.
So, unless every budget number I've seen is bogus, I do not see how one can
claim that the size of the federal government in terms of the percentage of
GDP spent is increasing is valid.
Dan'm Traeki Ring of Crystallized Knowledge.
Known for calculating, but not known for shutting up
>
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