I am writing an article on the State and Statistics and thought I’d post this chart (pdf here; it’s about 1mb) showing the increase in government spending on simply gathering and analyzing statistics. The State, aka your tax money at waste, will use 90 government agencies, employ 150,000 employees, and waste almost $8 billion in 2009. As a reference, when Murray Rothbard wrote this article in 1961, the State spent $43 million and employed 10,000 employees to gather statistics.
4 Comments
The blip at Y2K is probably understandable, but why the sudden changes of slope mid-’07 and late ‘08?
Any breakdown on what those statistics are measuring?
How much of it is spent “analyzing” what individuals are doing (Big Brother is Watching You!)?
How much of it is spent trying to “regulate” businesses.
For another frightening chart about ballooning bureaucratic costs: see figure 3 in The Incredible Growth of the Regulators’ Budget
By Veronique de Rugy and Melinda Warren.
After looking at the amazing differences between Dems and Reps in “regulatory budget”, you can easily refute any argument that “the Republicans have been deregulating” as the cause of our current economic woes.
Thanks for the links. I kept hearing how government grew more under Reps than Dems but I hadn’t seen any figures. Figure 5 is amazing: HUD employees earn almost $1 million a year! (JK)
My article (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/brown-c1.html) talks a bit more about the statistics. Here’s a link (it’s about 1MB) to the amount each agency receives, but it doesn’t include the “Big Brother” stats, at least not explicitly: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/09statprog.pdf
Oh, and the slope change in 2007/2008 is mainly due to the additional costs of preparing for the 2010 Census. You can see how efficient government is: three years and billions of dollars to prepare to count sheeple.
But Maturin,
How easy is it to refute the argument when its a fact that under Republican rule the last 8 years regulations have not been enforced, in addition to deregulating activity. The facts lead us in the other direction from your statement: the Republican government is spending more money on regulation and doing less regulating!!
Another thing too, the top 5 Presidents in annual expenditure increases for regulation are Republicans. GWB and Nixon fill the top 5.
Really, this subject is a fraction of the big picture, but its a good indicator of how/why Republicans are in such a low ebb. If all Republicans do is focus on finding strands of evidence to defend their failures they will never change to be able to address real problems in a real way. Stop making excuses and take a hard look in the mirror (not you personally per se, but its what Republicans need to do to come back).
Thats not to say Democrats are innocent by any means. Its just timing, we’re coming to an end of a phase of Republican rule, a phase that has led us in the direction of ruin. Severe damage. Maybe we’ll say the same in 4 years about Democrats. But today, we need to stop making excuses for Republicans’ failure.