January 04, 2011
Yep, Brooks said that proposals to raise $150 billion a year from Wall Street banks and speculators are now on the national political agenda. So are alternatives to patent monopolies for supporting prescription drug research and international Medicare vouchers that will allow beneficiaries to take advantage of the more efficient health care systems in Germany, Canada and elsewhere, with the government and the beneficiary splitting the savings.
Brooks told readers this morning that “…the exciting thing about this moment is that everything is on the table,” so all of these policies must be under consideration. Okay, Brooks probably didn’t really mean this, but we can still have fun.
He should also correct his characterization of big versus small government. He seems to use government spending as a share of GDP as a measure of whether government is “big.” In fact, a government that spends less as a share of GDP can easily have more control over the economy than a larger government. For example, a government can mandate private expenditures such as the purchase of health care rather than pay for health care through direct spending. Or, it can grant monopolies like patents and copyrights instead of paying subsidies. It can also give out tax expenditures, like the mortgage interest deduction, instead of paying out subsidies.
The government can also squeeze large segments of the workforce by having the Federal Reserve Board pursue policies that push up interest rates and therefore unemployment. Such policies would also have the effect of squeezing state and local governments, forcing them to cut back spending and/or raise taxes. In short, there is little direct relationship between the government’s share of GDP and its impact on the economy.
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