The U.S. never had small government

Taxes and public investment: less intrusive than alternatives

Posted by Gar Lipow (Guest Contributor) at 2:12 PM on 03 Apr 2008

Read more about: politics | agriculture | public lands

Occasionally, as happened on one of my posts, someone will mention the early 20th century and before as a happy era when small government was the rule. These people are confusing low taxes with small government.

Government has played a huge role in the U.S. since it became a nation. It's just that for much of its lifespan, the U.S. used military force to wipe out Native American nations and take their land. That extremely valuable land was then used to subsidize development. Trappers, loggers, cattle barons, settlers, and miners were all handed resource rights or land, the majority of it taken by force. The railroads developed by being handed not just rights of way but real estate stretching out a mile around the tracks. For that matter, until the Civil War, slavery was a pretty strong subsidy to agriculture and the Northern industry fed by that agriculture -- all maintained by government force. And we should not forget the use of civil injunctions, local and state law enforcement, and even the military to ensure that labor disputes were settled in favor of owners over labor.

If you really prefer the state's use of force to taxes, there are many ways to describe your political position, but "small government advocate" is not one of them.

For story: The U.S. never had small government
7 Comments | Post a Comment

Heh

Well who ever said lower taxes meant lower spending?

And who ever said lower taxes means lower taxes. You still have to pay back deficit spending via income taxes. Plus Interest! It just takes longer.

http://greyfalcon.net/doonsbury.png
http://greyfalcon.net/debt2.png
http://greyfalcon.net/canadadollar.png

by GreyFlcn at 2:45 PM on 03 Apr 2008

Good point

You're absolutely right that gov't regulations can be as or more pernicious (or, beneficial) than fiscal policy in establishing the role of government. Indeed, one whole branch of government (the judiciary) defines rather large swathes of people's lives without having any direct fiscal impact beyond their salaries, benefits & building leases.

That said, I think there is a separate and valid analysis for government spending (not necessarily taxes) as a percent of GNP, as this does give a pretty good comparative sense of the size of government. The Economist tracks this periodically, and has shown fairly compellingly that over the past 4 decades, on that definition, "small" government has occurred when we had Democratic leadership, "big" government when we had Republicans. I leave it to others to argue whether that is good or bad - but it is certainly counter to the conventional wisdom.

by Sean Casten at 3:52 PM on 03 Apr 2008

taxes and big/small

One of my points is that a lot of 18th and 19th and even early 20th century spending was funding by murder, robbery and looting rather than taxation. Spending as a percent of GDP was not actually that small. It is just that a lot of it was "off the books" looted from its rightful owners. If you include the value of natural resources and real estate stolen and then given away, government spending in the 18th and 19th centures was pretty big.

by Gar Lipow at 3:57 PM on 03 Apr 2008

Thought-provoking argument

Would be great if you could develop this theme into a book!

These are only my personal opinions.

by Ron Steenblik at 4:25 PM on 03 Apr 2008

Perhaps you could call it

Perhaps you could call it:
"Large amounts of government money is only bad when it goes to people not businesses"

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/02/the-colbert-repo ...
http://mediamatters.org/items/200803260008
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/02/politics/washin ...
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/1/16/152835/152

And for kicks:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/01/great_a ...
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/02/race-for-the-whi ...

by GreyFlcn at 5:50 PM on 03 Apr 2008

Lochner

The early 20th cent was also the notorious Lochner era, named after the savage supreme court decision which gutted all worker safety and wage protections. Here too we see government aggression which didn't involve expenditure.

For a long time Lochner was held in the same disrepute as Dred Scott. Even conservatives didn't usually bother disputing this. But in recent years, just as they've been trying to rehabilitate McCarthy, so the right has been trying to recast Lochner as a golden age.

by Russ at 1:21 AM on 04 Apr 2008

Heh

just as they've been trying to rehabilitate McCarthy

Terrorism is the new Communism.

by GreyFlcn at 5:14 AM on 04 Apr 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.