Dark Horses

This week’s disclosure from the Department of Cold Comfort is that, as bad as tax and spending problems are in the United States, they are even worse in other countries.

Such, in any event, is the picture sketched for us by Richard Rose of the University of Strathclyde (in Scotland) and Guy Peters of Tulane in Can Government Go Bankrupt? (Basic Books, $12.50). This is a well researched and carefully argued survey of economic trends in five Western European nations (Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden) and the United States. Its principal message is that the growth of the welfare state in all these countries has outstripped the growth of national product, and has in fact become so large as to endanger chances of economic progress.

This week’s disclosure from the Department of Cold Comfort is that, as bad as tax and spending problems are in the United States, they are even worse in other countries.

Such, in any event, is the picture sketched for us by Richard Rose of the University of Strathclyde (in Scotland) and Guy Peters of Tulane in Can Government Go Bankrupt? (Basic Books, $12.50). This is a well researched and carefully argued survey of economic trends in five Western European nations (Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden) and the United States. Its principal message is that the growth of the welfare state in all these countries has outstripped the growth of national product, and has in fact become so large as to endanger chances of economic progress.