When this country became the US govt was less than 5% of GDP. Today the govt is about 40% of GDP. If we cut it just 30% the economy will get really much better. For questions please refer to Milton Friedman (America's greatest economist).
Its more like 60% when you include entitlements or those that work for unions like teachers, police etc. I include them because they always rubber stamp whatever nonsense the goverment wants. John
Lets see, the biggest employer in America is the government by far, the biggest expenditure in the budget is defense by far, one trillion dollars every year, esp. in the Iraq era, add 3 trillion dollars for Iraq as concluded by a nobel prize winning economist and a Harvard economics professor in their recently published book. Can't say I have a solution but alot of people would have to find another means of survival if not for the government expenditure. I hate to get idealistic but idealism is the only place a solution might be taken from. People, when they complain, seem to be arguing for idealism but the word has become demonized like "liberal" or "big government" what Chomsky calls "emotionaly potent oversimplification." Its sort of like poetry is the best means of describing something that is "beyond words." Just for the hell of it I'll get idealistic. No borders, no religion (no John Lennon jokes) meaningful pursuits of the arts, earth, sciences, reason (being provoked by my intuition to lampoon myself) who does the work? Good question. The work that really sucks -- that people are least inclined to engage, work that doesn't come close to being a hobby (try getting people to confess to this!) gets paid the best. Work that involves golf the least ...or at least what passes for work. Sounds like communism doesn't it ...theres that emotionaly potent oversimplification. Be kind.