Average over the past half century: 20.2 percent
In 2007, the year before the crisis: 20.0 percent
In 2009, from the Obama budget: 27.2 percent
Average 2010-19, in Obama budget: 22.6 percent
In 2019, last year of Obama budget: 22.6 percent
Recall these words of warning:
HOW WILL IT ALL END? Over the last century, the largest increase in the size of the government occurred during the Great Depression and World War II. Even after these crises were over, they left a legacy of higher spending and taxes. To this day, we have yet to come to grips with how to pay for all that the government created during that era — a problem that will become acute as more baby boomers retire and start collecting the benefits promised.
Rahm Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff, has said, “You don’t ever want to let a crisis go to waste: it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”
What he has in mind is not entirely clear. One possibility is that he wants to use a temporary crisis as a pretense for engineering a permanent increase in the size and scope of the government. Believers in limited government have reason to be wary.