With Congress back in Washington after a long recess, I thought I would take a little time to remind lawmakers what one of their main priorities should be: Cut government spending.
This chart shows the amount of real federal dollars spent per capita over the past 40 years. The bottom line is that the government is growing and it’s growing fast.
And it will get worse when spending on programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid explode over the next few years. I hope that Congress will start cutting spending rather than kicking the can down the road again.
For more details and also more spending charts (spending as a share of GDP, among other things) go here.