Governments are not going to stop getting bigger
Some factors which drive the process are eternal and some are getting stronger
WHEN, IN 1996, President Bill Clinton announced that “the era of big government is over”, supporters to his left feared that saying so would only serve to make it so. They were wrong. So was Mr Clinton. Between 1996 and 2019 America’s annual government spending grew by one percentage point of GDP. And when, last year, the economy crashed, it rose by another ten (see chart 1). Now President Joe Biden is building on what started as emergency pandemic-related policy, expanding the child-tax credit, creating a universal federally funded child-care system, subsidising paid family leave and expanding Obamacare.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “The great embiggening”
Briefing November 20th 2021
From the November 20th 2021 edition
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Has the war in Gaza radicalised young Palestinians?
After Gaza, how will the Palestinians try to build their state?
A year on, Israeli society is divided about the lessons of October 7th
Hawks and doves, religious and secular, right and left—all the old cleavages are resurfacing
The bloodshed in the Middle East is fast expanding
Israel seems certain to retaliate to Iran’s missile attack
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A war meant to draw in the militant group’s allies has instead left them battered
After the decapitation of Hizbullah, Iran could race for a nuclear bomb
The embattled clerical regime might feel the need for stronger deterrence
Ukraine is on the defensive, militarily, economically and diplomatically
Russian advances, fatigue among its allies and political divisions at home leave it in a bind