"Uncharted and profoundly dangerous territory"-The Spending Sickness Makes for Unhealthy Reform

by Michael Medved at TownHall.com

Government at all levels now eats up twice the share of the national economy it consumed 60 years ago. Are the government services you receive twice as valuable?

That challenge should become the key question in the ongoing battle over Obamacare. Given the obvious tendency of government to spend more and more with no discernable benefit to the public, why should anyone expect a better result from a huge expansion of the federal role in medical care?

The numbers already tell a horrifying story about the reckless expansion of government. In 1951, despite the bloody and costly burdens of the Korean War, spending for federal, state and local governments consumed 22.38% of the total American economy, as measured in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This year (2009) government at all levels will spend at least 45% of every dollar American individuals and industries manage to earn an all-time record for peacetime, approaching the 52.97% that governments used in 1945 at the very height of World War II. To put the current number in perspective, Lyndon Johnson drew near universal condemnation for his irresponsible guns and butter budget of 1968, with bloated government programs to back his Great Society schemes at the same time we supported more than a half-million fighting men in Vietnam. LBJs spending (which helped cost him the presidency) never exceeded 30.46% of GDP; Obamas, at an estimated 45.19% this year (without Obamacare!) is some 50% higher!.....

The main cause for the doubling of governmental expenditures involves three areas of inexorable expansion: entitlements, social programs and bureaucracy. Since Obama care would bring dramatic additional growth in all three areas, its important to consider the way that previous boosts for relevant federal, state and local budgets utterly failed in improving governmental efficiency or effectiveness. If theres a single governmental program that has steadily improved over the last sixty years (while budgets steadily enlarged) I cant think of it. Public education offers an especially dispiriting example, with per-pupil spending nearly tripling and relative performance showing either alarming declines or a disappointing lack of positive results..........

The second effort by Obama apologists to justify his runaway spending involves their favorite tactic whenever they face serious criticism: blame it all on Bush. According to this logic, the previous administration deserves most of the criticism for sky-rocketing deficits and risky raids on the federal treasury. Democratic propagandists try to suggest that President Obama is actually trying mightily to regain control of the fiscal catastrophe he inherited from his feckless and reckless predecessor.

The numbers actually tell a totally different story. While state and local spending rose implacably (state spending more than tripled since 1951) federal spending as a share of the national economy has remained uncannily stable for fifty years under both Republicans and Democrats. In President Richard Nixons first year (1969), the feds spent 18.65% of the GDP. That number inched upward to its recent high under Ronald Reagan (22.86% in 1983) then sank down again under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In the first Bush year (2001) the federal government chewed up 18.40% and by the time of his final year (2008) that figure had gone up to 20.91% -- a worrisome increase, but still well below Reagan-era levels. ............

Even before the new billions and, ultimately, trillions the president proposes devoting to his health care reform, the spending is unprecedented, perilous and unsustainable. The growth in governmental expenditure in no way reflects (or fuels) an improvement in governmental services, and the overall increases have no connection to jumps in defense spending (which has actually gone down, as a percentage of the economy). Finally, the Bush spending record may be disappointing, but the Obama record looks downright disastrous. The president may claim to be following a trail blazed by George W. Bush but he is, in fact, headed off on his own, dragging an increasingly worried country into uncharted and profoundly dangerous territory.

Read all of this very important article at TownHall.com