Shock: Study of 108 Countries' Economies Find That As Government Grows, The Private Sector, And Genuine Wealth Creation, Shrinks

PolitiFact's fingers must be flurrying right now, typing out PANTS ON FIRE! PANTS ON FIRE! quick as they can.

ur results show a significant negative effect of the size of government on growth. […] Interestingly, government consumption is consistently detrimental to output growth irrespective of the country sample considered (OECD, emerging and developing countries).

And this is interesting: When Congressmen and Senators become powerful, their states get more federal money.

That at least must be good, right? They are stealing money from other states to spend in their own. So the negative consequences of government spending are burdened on to other states, partly, and the big earmark states just receive (mostly) the benefit.

That's what you might guess, at least. This study questions that.

The average state experiences a 40 to 50 percent increase in earmark spending if its senator becomes chair of one of the top-three congressional committees. In the House, the average is around 20 percent.

For broader measures of spending, such as discretionary state-level federal transfers, the increase from being represented by a powerful senator is around 10 percent.

In the year that follows a congressman’s ascendancy, the average firm in his state cuts back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent.

There is some evidence that firms scale back their employment and experience a decline in sales growth.

So federal spending might hurt growth even when other people are picking up a disproportionate share of the check.

And speaking of PolitiFact, Bookworm has a good piece on the new lies masquerading as the "neutral fact check." Here's are the epigrammatic quotes leading the piece:

“Facts are stubborn things.” — John Adams.

“Ideologues are even more stubborn than facts.” — Bookworm

posted by Ace at 01:24 PM

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