Tag Archives: beltway

Government Is a Third Bigger Than You Think

Posted on April 9, 2010 | Comments Off on Government Is a Third Bigger Than You Think

Today’s Washington Times briefly quotes me making that point:

“A regulatory monster is eating America’s economy. Not only do federal regulations cost Americans more than the income tax, they cost about as much as the entire GDP of Canada,” analyst Ryan Young tells Beltway. “Since regulatory costs don’t show up in the budget, more than a trillion dollars of government’s cost go largely unnoticed. The burden of government is actually about a third larger than most people think.”

For more, see Wayne Crews’ forthcoming 2010 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments.

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Posted in regulation

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Is this Grounds for Pessimism?

Posted on September 28, 2005 | 3 comments

The budget for the federal government is currently over $2.5 trillion. Just think about that for a second.

Now it gets worse.

Not too long ago, I attended a meeting on the Hill with several Republicans. They were very proud that they had proposed over $40 billion in budget cuts for FY 2006.

Then someone else at the meeting reminded them of two things. First, increases elsewhere more than negated their proposed cuts. Government was still going to grow. Second, $40 billion isn’t even a rounding error when you’re talking $2.5 trillion.

The Republicans were very offended when this was pointed out.

Then within two weeks, almost all of the proposed spending cuts were eliminated.

Now with the current round of hurricane relief spending, history is repeating itself almost exactly with the RSC’s “Operation Offset.”

So it goes.

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Posted in Economics, Political Animals

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