“Out of Control Spending”? Not So Much
A comment by flipspiceland on a previous post, about Democratic senators and “out of control” spending, got me curious about our spending numbers compared to other large, prosperous countries.
Short story: our governments (fed, state, local) are incredibly frugal compared to the rest of the world. This even with a defense budget that’s larger than every other country’s combined.
Here are the facts on the ground, most recent comparable data I could pull: for 2006. (As you can see, even for that year some countries haven’t reported.)
This is all in national currencies for 2006, no jimmying around with inflation adjustments or exchange rates/purchasing-power parities to convert to U.S. dollars. So the data’s pretty much as straight as you can get it.
| Government Spending and GDP | |||
| (In National Currencies, 2006) | |||
| Government Expenditures | GDP | Spending as % of GDP | |
| Korea | 251,982,800 | 908,743,800 | 28% |
| Ireland | 59,912 | 176,759 | 34% |
| United States | 4,795,952 | 13,336,200 | 36% |
| Japan | 183,515,800 | 507,364,800 | 36% |
| Spain | 377,876 | 984,284 | 38% |
| Canada | 568,681 | 1,449,215 | 39% |
| Norway | 873,925 | 2,159,573 | 40% |
| Greece | 89,980 | 210,460 | 43% |
| United Kingdom | 584,779 | 1,325,795 | 44% |
| Germany | 1,052,290 | 2,325,100 | 45% |
| Netherlands | 246,028 | 540,216 | 46% |
| Portugal | 71,944 | 155,446 | 46% |
| Belgium | 154,137 | 318,193 | 48% |
| Italy | 722,751 | 1,485,377 | 49% |
| Finland | 81,343 | 167,009 | 49% |
| Austria | 127,194 | 256,162 | 50% |
| Denmark | 841,076 | 1,631,659 | 52% |
| France | 952,516 | 1,806,430 | 53% |
| Sweden | 1,569,579 | 2,900,790 | 54% |
| Australia | NA | 1,045,674 | #VALUE! |
| New Zealand | NA | 165,903 | #VALUE! |
| Israel | 296,240 | NA | #VALUE! |
| Source: stats.oecd.org. Expenditure from National Accounts: General Government Accounts: Government expenditure by function. National currency, current prices. GDP from National Accounts: Gross Domestic Product, Annual, in millions of Current Prices (National Currrency) | |||
Taking just federal government expenditures, we’re even more frugal. (A higher percentage of our government spending is by state and local governments.) Stats.OECD is kind of a pain in the ass because it’s forever expiring your session and losing all your work, so I didn’t pull this myself–found it on another blogger’s site, pulled from CIA data. (CIA, OECD, UN, etc. all ultimately get their data from the same sources—the countries themselves—using standardized metrics.)
Notice the company we’re keeping?
Federal Spending as a Percentage of GDP
13. Sweden   58.1
14. Denmark   58.1
19. Belgium   56.0
20. Norway   55.8
23. Italy   55.3
24. Netherlands   54.7
25. Austria   54.3
26. Finland   54.2
27. Portugal   54.1
34. Greece   50.7
37. UKÂ Â Â 50.0
41. Germany   48.8
43. Canada   48.2
47. Spain   47.3
51. New Zealand   46.6
63. Israel   43.6
64. Australia   43.6
69. Ireland   41.5
76. Switzerland   37.8
78. Luxembourg   37.5
103. Japan   30.9
107. South Korea   29.3
137. Taiwan   21.2
143. Chad   19.9
144. USÂ Â Â 19.9
145. Cameroon   19.1
Not counting state and local US spending is cheating.
@Publius
I agree. Our federalist system means that local and state taxes comprise a much larger portion of taxation than in most other countries. That’s why I showed total first, fed-only second.
But it’s still worth showing the fed-only numbers to counter the “cheating” figures offered up by the right.