What is greatest contributor to our deficit?

[KrazyHorse]

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=ltjib1m1uf3pf_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=govdefct_t2&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:GBR&tstart=0&tunit=Y&tlen=38&hl=en&dl=en&uniSize=0.035&iconSize=0.5#ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=govdefct_t2&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:USA:FIN:FRA:JPN:CAN:NZL&tstart=0&tunit=Y&tlen=38&hl=en&dl=en

I think the country-by-country comparison shows the relationship pretty well, actually

japan, france & finland as the "high-loss" areas

canada, US and NZ as low-loss

The difference is pretty obvious.

[KrazyHorse]

Unfortunately, not all of the timeseries reach back to 1970. A scatterplot over all countries in sample would be interesting. Looks to be quite a strong relationship

[KrazyHorse]

And under expenditures (instead of tax revenues)

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=ltjib1m1uf3pf_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=govdefct_t2&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:GBR&tstart=0&tunit=Y&tlen=38&hl=en&dl=en&uniSize=0.035&iconSize=0.5#ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=govdefct_t3&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:USA:FIN:FRA:JPN:CAN:NZL&tstart=0&tunit=Y&tlen=38&hl=en&dl=en

same pattern.

[giblets]

And under expenditures (instead of tax revenues)

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=ltjib1m1uf3pf_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=govdefct_t2&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:GBR&tstart=0&tunit=Y&tlen=38&hl=en&dl=en&uniSize=0.035&iconSize=0.5#ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=govdefct_t3&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:USA:FIN:FRA:JPN:CAN:NZL&tstart=0&tunit=Y&tlen=38&hl=en&dl=en

same pattern.

Broken link.

edit: Never mind. I needed to clear my cache.

[KrazyHorse]

works for me

anyway, use the same thing, go to "general government expenditures", same countries I mentioned.

[Kuciwalker]

How do you know it isn't a cultural difference? Canada has roughly the same work trends as the US, while taking in significantly more tax revenue than the US. I would expect that to be a better indication of how Americans would react than a European country.

Culture is endogenous.

edit: i.e. #82

[giblets]

Culture is endogenous.

I think Krazyhorse said that last page.

[Kuciwalker]

I cross-edited you.

[KrazyHorse]

I don't have a problem with redistribution per se. But it has real costs, and the way it's implemented can change the size of those costs.

The empirical evidence demonstrates that there is some, but not necessarily all that much room to increase total government take in the US (in absolute, not relative to GDP terms). The available room is even lower than short-term elasticities suggest. In addition to there being a strictly limited scope for increases in how much extra the US can fund through taxes, we need to remember that the further we eat into that margin, the more harm we do. Maximum government revenue is a bound, but certainly not the optimum (except under very odd metrics)

[Hauldren Collider]

KH, you point out the % of gdp for state, local, and federal in the aggregate--what % is it for the most big-government states/mucipalities versus the most limited government states/municipalities?

[KrazyHorse]

What am I, your research assistant?

[giblets]

Okay, I guess I can't reasonably expect an institution that takes half of a society's income and uses it to provide free services to not cause people to work less.

[giblets]

List of sovereign states in Europe by budget revenues per capita

What does the US government spend per capita?

[Kuciwalker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_States_federal_budget

~3.82tn.

I'm pretty sure you can take it the rest of the way.

[giblets]

That doesn't include state or local.