Tackling Washington’s spending problem

Rob’s article recently ran in the Santa Fe New Mexican. He makes the much-needed-to-be repeated point that spending is the problem in Washington and that both parties are to blame.

I also ran across an interesting chart from Veronique de Rugy of Mercatus Center. There is a lot of talk about going back to Clinton-era tax rates to achieve fiscal solvency. But how about going back to Clinton-era spending levels, too? During his two terms in office, President Clinton reduced spending as a share of gross domestic product from 21.0 percent of GDP in fiscal year 1994 to 18.2 percent in 2001. Today, spending stands at 24.3 percent of GDP. As the following chart shows, excepting interest on the debt, all areas of spending have grown in real terms and overall spending today dwarfs spending at the end of Clinton’s Administration.