According to BEA data http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/SelectTable.asp?Selected=Y table 1.1.5 government (fed, state & local) consumption expenditures and investment in 2009 were $2.9 trillion which is about 20% of GDP.
What I find particularly annoying is that finding believable numbers on the internet takes about 5 minutes (it actually took me 40 seconds, but I already know where to look for them) so numerically literate people should have no problem verifying "facts" published that obviously looks like a right wing tabloid. Yet, the self-styled state-hating lefties like James Heartfield have no qualms of disseminating this right wing propaganda as long as it fits their anti-state ideology. Shame on you.
Wojtek
On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 3:02 AM, James Heartfield
<Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> What government spending? According to this website,
> http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/charts.html#copypaste it has grown to 43
> per cent of GDP. Can that be right?
>
>
> USGDP$ billion Spend $ billion
> 1995 7414.7 2634.87 = 35.5 per cent
> 1996 7838.5 2719.43
> 1997 8332.4 2813.59
> 1998 8793.5 2923.39
> 1999 9353.5 3053.51
> 2000 9951.5 3240.18
> 2001 10286.2 3434.00
> 2002 10642.3 3697.75
> 2003 11142.1 3930.63
> 2004 11867.8 4127.66
> 2005 12638.4 4397.46
> 2006 13398.9 4698.31
> 2007 14077.6 4924.61
> 2008 14441.4 5335.25
> 2009 14258.2 6034.60
> 2010 14623.9 6412.71 = 43 per cent
>
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