Trump increased spending temporarily by 13% of GDP
and permanently by at least 1%.
Data: usgovernmentspending.com: national-only, total national, state, and local
Seven tag teams successively raised the floor for total spending
Governments in the USA have in large part been grown by tag teams.
In the 1800s, Thomas Jefferson’s embargo, which broadened into James Madison’s War of 1812, ratcheted total government spending up from the American colonies’ 1–2% of GDP to a new floor of 3.1%. James Buchanan’s promotion of union, which broadened into Abraham Lincoln’s Civil War, ratcheted spending up to 5.3%.
In the 1900s, William Taft’s Progressive centralization, which broadened into Woodrow Wilson’s Great War, ratcheted spending up to 11%. Herbert Hoover’s initiation and Franklin Roosevelt’s followthrough of Progressive interference with recovery, and the resulting failure to prevent World War II, ratcheted spending up to 18%. A series of Progressive presidents and major wars, capped off by Richard Nixon’s, Gerald Ford’s, and Jimmy Carter’s Great Inflation I and wage and price controls, ratcheted spending up to 32%.
In the 2000s, George Bush’s initiation of financial-crisis spending and Barack Obama’s followthrough ratcheted spending up to 35%. Donald Trump’s initiation of Great Inflation II spending and Joe Biden’s followthrough ratcheted spending up to 36%. And we’re still early in Great Inflation II and in the increasingly-likely Great Depression II.
Out of all income earned on labor, the national government takes a freedom-suffocating 36%, and state and local governments take another whole 36%. We serfs are far more productive now, so we suffer less deprivation, but even so, we’re already nearly 3/4 of the way down the road to full socialism.
Tag teams double down
Whenever we’ve gotten tag-teamed, we’ve gotten stuck with the same bigger-government actions no matter which candidate has won. This includes when we’ve gotten tag-teamed by Trump-Biden.
Under Trump, spending skyrocketed to an all-time high of 48% of GDP. Under Biden, spending then briefly settled back, but only down to 36%. That means that overall, Trump-Biden has already ratcheted up spending by at least another 1%.
Trump expresses no regrets over covid lockdowns and spending, and expresses great pride over novel genetic therapies that from the start have been deadly and debilitating. Well before those defining actions, Trump already had saved Obamacare. He had continued massive legal and illegal immigration that favors people who vote for bigger governments. He had ratcheted up racially-calculating jailbreak of violent criminals that he favored because of a political calculation that was racially motivated. Capping it all off, for years, Trump has endorsed both incumbents and contenders for open seats who are Republican Progressives, ratcheting into place “the swamp.”
Never in history has a former officeholder who expanded governments then turned around and shrunk governments.
What about the Economy, the Political System, and the Peace on the Korean Peninsula?