Talk:Government spending

Heterodox Economics Disagrees
I deleted this section as it is an essay which represents the author's point of view, not a neutral one. Alternative points of view are certainly allowed, but need to be within Wikipedia guidelines. Please try again. It may suffice to reference the MMT article.

BTW, the author of this section claims conventional economics has been widely discredited. If so, it wouldn't be considered conventional.

I agree with others here that the article in general has problems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidlark (talk • contribs) 04:58, 17 March 2020 (UTC)


 * This deleted passage is *not* the author's point of view. Meanwhile, the point of view presented in the original text--that of conventional, neoclassical economics--is biased and counterfactual. I've repeatedly asked the editors to cite specific passages that are "the author's point of view" in my edits without the slightest response, except for being barred from editing this article.

Here are the points I've made almost entirely in others' words:
 * Heterodox Economics Disagrees
 * "Mainstream economics is replete with ideas that ‘everyone knows’ to be true, but that are actually arrant nonsense.” says a senior adviser at the Federal Reserve named Jeremy B. Rudd. His 27-page paper, published as part of the Fed’s Finance and Economics Discussion Series, has become what passes for a viral sensation among economists." (from NY Times)
 * Although Rudd focuses on flaws in the Federal Reserve’s approach to inflation, the untrue neoclassical economic ideas also include:
 * Crowding Out – “The basic premise is that there is a limited supply of private sector saving for which government borrowing and private sector borrowing can compete. If government tries to borrow more by issuing and selling more bonds, then the competition for finance would push up interest rates….However, that model is incorrect. Government fiscal deficits generate non-government surpluses (flows) that accumulate to the non-government sector’s net acquisition of financial assets (a stock)...Since there are more savings (as a result of higher income levels arising from the deficits) and greater financial wealth, it is not true that government is competing with private sector borrowers…Both savings and portfolios expand as government deficits grow….the crowding out argument against fiscal deficits is not based on a coherent understanding of operational realities, or of the empirical data.” p.336-7 Macroeconomics - Mitchell, Wray, Watts 2019
 * Loanable Funds Theory
 * – “interest rates are supposedly determined by the intersection of savings and investment…Most importantly, saving is a function of income and it is income adjustments rather than interest rate adjustments that bring saving into line with planned investment expenditure. In the expanded model, savings equals investment plus the government deficit plus the current account surplus.” p 491 Ibid.
 * “Keynes found that once we realise that investment and saving functions are both functions of national income, the theory of interest rate determination provided by the loanable funds doctrine fails because it provides no way of knowing how far the investment and savings functions might shift at different levels of national income.” p, 188 Ibid.
 * Note: The above citations are from an economics textbook, not "the author." The rather high-handed editing that elbows out alternatives for an obviously flawed theory is frustrating to say the least. I'll believe you're not promoting your own "author's point of view" when I see the passage above appear in the article. Otherwise, you're just doing what you have accused me of doing, and certainly not following the popular narrative that Wikipedia is an open forum. Adam Eran (talk) 21:56, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Some background for claims that conventional economics is "widely discredited":
 * “Leading active members of today’s economics profession… have formed themselves into a kind of Politburo for correct economic thinking. As a general rule—as one might generally expect from a gentleman’s club—this has placed them on the wrong side of every important policy issue, and not just recently but for decades. They predict disaster where none occurs. They deny the possibility of events that then happen. … They oppose the most basic, decent and sensible reforms, while offering placebos instead. They are always surprised when something untoward (like a recession) actually occurs. And when finally they sense that some position cannot be sustained, they do not reexamine their ideas. They do not consider the possibility of a flaw in logic or theory. Rather, they simply change the subject. No one loses face, in this club, for having been wrong. No one is disinvited from presenting papers at later annual meetings. And still less is anyone from the outside invited in.” [emphasis added] - from James K. Galbraith’s Who are these economists anyway? (Galbraith is the son of JFK advisor John Kenneth Galbraith, and a professor of economics at SMU)
 * From: “Alice’s Adventures in Equilibrium” [Hussman Funds]. “Much of what passes for economic and financial analysis is incoherent. I’ve chosen that word carefully. The problem is not that the beliefs of investors are “less true” than they think. It’s that many of the most commonly repeated phrases don’t mean anything close to what investors think they mean. It’s that many of these belief systems are inconsistent, confused, or rooted in false premises. They are incoherent in the same way that it’s incoherent to debate how many pine trees are planted at the edge of the earth, how many aardvarks you need to start a thunderstorm, or how the gold coins in the pot at the end of the rainbow are invested. That’s not to say that incoherent beliefs have no impact on the markets. But it does mean that the speculative market impact is entirely the product of what Buddhists might call ‘mental formations’ that may not, and need not, have anything to do with reality, and leave investors vulnerable because of it.” - John P. Hussman, Ph.D. President, Hussman Investment Trust
 * “A precondition for what you call an economist, especially a Nobel Prize winning economist, is not to understand how the economy works. Because if you understand that, you’re going to threaten the vested interests that are getting the free lunch. You have to say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, everybody earns whatever they can get. Robbers and criminals like that idea. ‘Yeah, we stole it fair and square!’” - Michael Hudson
 * (Hudson is a scholar of the history of economic thought, and the author of many books)
 * See Steve Keen's Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor Dethroned for a complete account of its failings. Keen himself won the Revere Prize in economics for correctly predicting the GFC.
 * Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, says the point of orthodox economics “is to create a language and methodology for governing that hides political assumptions from the public” Calling it a "science" in the conventional sense of that word is at least open to question.
 * Nobel laureate Joe Stiglitz asserts conventional economics is misguided.
 * The statement that "...the author of this section claims conventional economics has been widely discredited. If so, it wouldn't be considered conventional" is either an innocent assertion of ignorance, or simply misdirection. After all, at one point in history it was conventional to believe that the planets and sun revolved around the earth. Galileo actually spent some time under house arrest for having the temerity to espouse a heliocentric explanation for the solar system. The "editors" here are (sorry, a term of art) "useful idiots" who want to assert some dominance, not informed scholars. Adam Eran (talk) 21:38, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The statement that "...the author of this section claims conventional economics has been widely discredited. If so, it wouldn't be considered conventional" is either an innocent assertion of ignorance, or simply misdirection. After all, at one point in history it was conventional to believe that the planets and sun revolved around the earth. Galileo actually spent some time under house arrest for having the temerity to espouse a heliocentric explanation for the solar system. The "editors" here are (sorry, a term of art) "useful idiots" who want to assert some dominance, not informed scholars. Adam Eran (talk) 21:38, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Answer:

According to the above, the article portion Heterodox Economics Disagrees supposedly "represents the author's point of view," yet it cites several sources, not just the author. It's not "neutral" to call conventional economics flawed, so of necessity the disagreement has a point of view. Even conventional, orthodox economists themselves have criticized their own conventions. To name two: Nobel laureate Joe Stiglitz famously said conventional economists needed to rethink their theories. Alan Greenspan confessed to congress that he had erred in his theories.

So "conventional" has failed, and failed again. The economists themselves say so. As the section points out, it did not predict the largest economic event of the last 80 years. How bad does "conventional" have to be before it's abandoned in favor of "accurate"? Suggested reading for those who dispute this "discredited" characterization is Steve Keen's Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor Dethroned.

As for whether widely discredited items can be conventional, if inaccurate, wisdom, one can cite the geocentric solar system, or Newtonian physics for two of many historical examples. Quantum mechanics is accurate; Newtonian physics was abandoned, but with plenty of protests.

As for citations, simply citing Modern Money Theory [MMT] is not sufficient. Referring to an MMT "article" (the Macroeconomics cited is a textbook) would not spell out the rather obvious errors in the "crowding out" theory. Passing off the conventional economic theory of government spending as respectable or "neutral" is not even close to accurate. Such conventional wisdom is no more "neutral" than the (widely accepted at the time) thinking that led to unsavory historical incidents like slavery or the holocaust (See Mark Blyth's Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea) It's one of the principle justifications responsible for our current predicament.

Adam Eran (talk) 04:20, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Seemingly Inconsistent
Side by side are displayed two graphs: total historical US government spending, and historical US government spending broken down by major function. Oddly, these do not match. For example, the graph with functional breakdown shows US government spending at around 25% of GDP in 1980, whereas the graph without breakdown shows US government spending at around 35% of GDP in 1980. Perhaps the graph with breakdown is leaving out some spending, which should be included under a category "other spending"?

That's because the first graph includes state and local spending while the second graph does not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.40.209.51 (talk) 04:36, 20 May 2012 (UTC)


 * A more serious problem is the inclusion of File:Us_gov_spending_history_1902_2010.png (created from data at a "conservative" site which includes transfers like Social Security despite that the very first sentence of the articleBold text is "government spending, government expenditure, or government spending on goods and services includes all government consumption and investment but excludes transfer payments made by a stateBold text"


 * So I've deleted that graph.Septimus.stevens (talk) 16:09, 21 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Good point. Assuming that the lead paragraph is a correct description (following that of Robert Barro and Vittorio Grilli) then all of the graphs and tables need examination. Do they include transfer payments? If so, they should not be in the article. (BTW, I've revised the introduction paragraph so your quoted material here does not match the present text.) – S. Rich (talk) 17:52, 21 May 2014 (UTC)


 * You're correct, government spending should not include transfers. If you crack open almost any Macro textbook, it will explain that government spending (G) does not include transfers between households, and that tax (T) is tax collections net of cash transfers. This is longstanding convention. There is a good reason for doing things this way, as you end up messing up the national accounting if you include cash transfers in government spending. All the charts, graphs, figures, etc. should be checked that they only include actual spending, not transfers. LK (talk) 04:44, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. And FYI, I've posted a discussion re one of the sources for a chart at WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. – S. Rich (talk) 04:56, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Early discussion
"...was projected to be $2,293 billion, or slightly..." I believe that this is supposed to be trillion, not billion. Also, if we are simply talking about Government Spending, then I imagine that we should include state and local spending as well. This would bring the number to about 3.3-3.5 trillion dollars.

Ian Lewis


 * The more I think about this, the more puzzled I get. $2,293 billion = $2.293 trillion, which more or less makes sense with the 3.3 trillion estimate you give for overall U.S. government spending. - RedWordSmith 05:57, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

what is the USA's GDP for the fiscal year 2004-2005

dead link
The link in the 'references' section is dead.

Relationship to private spending
This article desperately needs coverage of how government spending is related to private spending, i.e. that increases in government spending, regardless of how financed, decrease the ability of private individuals to spend. (sdsds - talk) 06:54, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

usgovernmentspending.com updated data
For various recession related reasons (drop in GDP, stimulus and TARP expenditures) there has been a sizable spike in the spending as a percentage of GDP curve. The data in the graphics sourced from usgovernmentspending.com are now out of date and require updating.

Opponents of government spending
The article mentions John Maynard Keynes and advocacy for deficit spending as economic stimulus. For a balanced perspective it needs an equally prominent mention of the opposing view, i.e. the any government spending, no matter how financed, is harmful to an economy. (sdsds - talk) 21:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The article promotes "crowding out" which in and of itself cautions government not to spend too much. The basic point is that government spending prevents the private sector from getting resources, because government creates money and can always pay more than currency users like the private sector. So the anti-spending bias is already baked into the cited theories.
 * "Crowding out," however assumes a zero-sum trade off with the private sector and could only be accurate if the economy were at 100% of its capacity and couldn't add new capacity. Neither of those things is true, so there is an obvious lack of balanced perpsective in the article. Adam Eran (talk) 17:43, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

what IS a tax expenditure?
I was trying to look up "tax expenditure" and got redirected here ... If we're redirecting "tax expenditure" here, this article should at least USE the phrase somewhere. For example, "A tax expenditure is an expenditure of taxes; thus it is equivalent to government spending." (I don't know whether that's true; ex hypothesis, I don't know what a tax expenditure is.) (But isn't some government spending not an expenditure of taxes, i.e. deficit spending?) Thanks. Agradman (talk) 13:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if we should even include tax expenditures... that is more than likely suited for tax code or personal taxes.

Redirect from Tax Expenditure is Incorrect
The redirect from "tax expenditure" to "government exenditure" seems to me to be incorrect. A tax expenditure is a term used to refer to "Revenue a government foregoes" by reducing tax rates to advance a particular policy objective (e.g., enhanced savings or increased investment in certain industry). I agree that a tax expenditure is related to "government expenditure", and indeed a form thereof. However, the redirect to the entire page gives the impression it merely refers to the expenditure of taxes. Instead, the redirect should target a specific subsection dealing with tax expenditurs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.108.139.170 (talk) 22:31, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

About usa
This does not seem to have a worldwide view of the subject. My suggestion is to create a new article about the US Spending or put this info in an existing article eg the usa's government deficit?MrK4 (talk) 16:47, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, the name of this article doesn't match the content - it's almost entirely US focused and doesn't cover the range and span of the topic across the world. Dt030 (talk) 01:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)dt030

My research revealed that the data table shown in this article regarding U.S. spending does not accurately represent U.S. spending. Jsg278 (talk) 02:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

a disaster
this article is a travesty. the idea that government spending is specifically a keynesian idea is ludicrous -- keynes talked specifically about deficit spending in the short to medium term to deal with recessions, he had relatively little to say about the long-run size of government. the idea that classical economists believe that public spending is inherently unproductive by definition is utterly insane, this view could only be held by some libertarian maniac who reads nothing of classical economists, but just accepts whatever handwaving about classical economics is vomited out by mises.org.

it's not that wikipedia flatters the "austrian" perspective, although of course you do. (and frankly you go beyond even "the austrian perspective" in terms of what actual economists who like austrian ideas believe, you present vulgar-austrian slogans like "inherently unproductive public sector" that are really just doctrinaire ultra-libertarianism masquerading as economics.) but the real problem is that half your economics pages seem to be written by people who have literally no concept of what the mainstream perspective even is in the first place, they only know these shambolic mises/rothbard/rand/paul strawmen. you monumentally incompetent people actually have written an encyclopedia entry entitled "government spending" that does not even use the phrase "public good." 99.250.12.151 (talk) 23:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Please see this page and then consider the options available, thanks. ;-) --Doug.(talk • contribs) 11:20, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Wow, you guys really seem to be upset about libertarians, when the vast majority of what i read on wikipedia, especially relating to economic subjects, goes nowhere near presenting the libertarian position on things. I think that you guys are just being a bit delusional. If you see something that is wrong, change it. Stop complaining that other people disagree with you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.40.209.51 (talk) 04:40, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I cleaned it up a little, and added an expansion tag where we should probably talk about savings from infrastructure investment. I had a source about that somewhere.... &mdash; Cup co  03:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Economics as of late has increasingly become polarized, and I guess that is why often we find statements on wikipedia that seem ludicrously pointed in the one or the other direction as more and more people have dug themselves in the trenches on the outskirts of economics. However, as a response, I think people should stop strong-arming themselves into talk pages talking disaster with big words and just make your edits and justify them. Once an article has been 'fixed' with some genuine mainstream economics, any further politically motivated edits by left/right wing nut jobs will immediately be spotted and hopefully removed in the future. 137.224.252.10 (talk) 08:59, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Uncredited source of misleading data. Suggest we delete the entire U.S. government spending section and reference
The table following the line "(The following table represents non-government data analysis. Published spending reports can be found here historical tables.)" is generated from data on the following website, generated by conservative blogger Chris Chantrill: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spend.php?span=usgs302&year=2010&view=1&expand=&expandC=&units=b&fy=fy12&local=s&state=US&pie=#usgs302

The use of the term "welfare" in this table is misleading and confusing, as the common language definition is quite different from the government definition and neither matches the numbers generated for this table (http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/72/How-Much-Does-Nation-Spend-on-Welfare.html).

More important than the uncredited and unclear data is the fact that there's already an enormous and well done article about the U.S. federal budget here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Budget

If I don't hear any good arguments against, I am going to delete this section or at least this table soon and redirect to the federal budget page wiki. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gpmpts (talk • contribs) 20:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Footnote 15 problem
The OECD source referenced in footnote 15 is generating a blank table with no actual numbers. There might be something wrong there with a need to update to a different source for the data. TMLutas (talk) 19:38, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Update: I corresponded with the folks there and there is apparently a methodology change and they don't expect to have US data anytime soon. Perhaps BEA should be used instead? TMLutas (talk) 18:35, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Education spending
The statement "Similarly, public subsidy of college tuition will increase the net present value of income tax receipts because college educated taxpayers earn much more than those without college education." is not verifiable by the source provided. I'm removing it, alone with the graph (which serves no other purpose than to support that statement), that states "Government investment in college tuition subsidies usually pay for themselves many times over in additional tax revenue." A discussion on it is taking place at Talk:Tax_policy_and_economic_inequality_in_the_United_States if you wish to discuss at a central location or offer a supporting source. Morphh  (talk) 16:08, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Figure 2 on page 45 of the original source . Aare you seriously claiming that an up-front investment in college of the same order of magnitude as its annual income increase outcome doesn't return the investment? What about the returns to aggregate demand growth from increased consumer spending? EllenCT (talk) 23:46, 18 January 2014 (UTC)


 * That figure does not support the material. I created a discussion for this topic.  It would seem to make sense to have it there, instead of several different pages.   Morphh   (talk) 23:52, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It most certainly does. Why do you say it does not? If you insist on deletions from multiple articles, then you are free to copy my replies to whatever other places you want them to go. EllenCT (talk) 23:59, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That chart shows that higher education leads to higher income. It doesn't say anything about government subsidies - WP:OR.   Morphh   (talk) 00:05, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What effort have you made to check your hypothesis (that government subsidy of higher education doesn't lead to higher education -- really???) with the peer reviewed literature? EllenCT (talk) 00:25, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I never made that hypothesis, nor is it the hypothesis put forward.  Morphh   (talk) 00:28, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * And we go round and round. Note how EllenCT tried to make it seem that editors are arguing about whether or not government subsidize college, when her starting point inserted on many pages is that "Government investment in college tuition subsidies usually pay for themselves many times over in additional tax revenue" notwithstanding she cannot provide a single citation that says that. Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying.Mattnad (talk) 00:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * This debate about education spending, which is one small portion of the budget for most governments, is way off-topic for the article. Keep in mind that under WP:TITLE, specifically WP:PRECISION, policy says "titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, ...." Well, the WP:TOPIC of this article is government spending as a whole – and precision means we must not include education spending or student loan spending or the results of government spending on education or any other small aspect of government spending in the educational field nor even pot-hole repair. My gosh, government spending includes pensions to retired government employees – does the fact that such spending enables them to spend time contributing to Wikipedia mean that this is a positive result that should be included in the article? (Assuming we have RS to support such a statement.) I hope this example shows how seeking to show what benefits or dismal results arise from government spending are not germane to the article. – S. Rich (talk) 07:20, 19 January 2014 (UTC)


 * On the contrary, it is pertinent because of the examples of government spending which reduce government debt the most, education, infrastructure, and health care top the list. EllenCT (talk) 05:22, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
 * OK. I'm game. Show me a source that healthcare spending reduces government debt (and explain the mechanism). Here's a reliable source, a CNN article, that indicates that healthcare spending is the leading reason we have future debt in the trillions .  And I quote, "Add together the original Medicare program and the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, and you'll see that about $108 trillion of the $124 trillion in unfunded liabilities is driven by healthcare for senior citizens and disabled people. This is the source of the debt crisis: 87 percent Medicare, 13 percent everything else."  Is CNN partisan?  Perhaps.  But I just don't see how healthcare spending reduce debt as you have averred.Mattnad (talk) 21:12, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I just thought I would toss in the latest news with the CBO saying the recent subsidization of health care will cost 2.3 million jobs in decreased labor due to the disincentive to work. Can't be good for creating an increase in net tax revenue.   Morphh   (talk) 01:14, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Sources copied from EllenCT's talk page
Secondary peer reviewed source from 1973, secondary peer reviewed source from 2010, popular treatment, long read popular treatment, left-wing, centrist, right-wing, policy response. Now it's your turn. What did you come up with in years compared to what took me less than a day, and what does that say about our relative WP:COMPETENCE? EllenCT (talk) 02:39, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Wow. Those citations are completely off the mark.  Not a one even comes close to supporting your statement "Government investment in college tuition subsidies usually pay for themselves many times over in additional tax revenue".  I can't be sure if you're serious.  Two don't even deal with the United States.  Either you cannot understand the question, or you know you don't have anything to support your POV.Mattnad (talk) 03:41, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You are mistaken. They all support the statement. Why do you think I've been adding their conclusions to both general and US-specific articles? EllenCT (talk) 03:43, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You have been adding your conclusions to articles and pushing a POV without the benefit of reliable sources to back it up. I can't guess at your motivation.Mattnad (talk) 10:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The NYT ref does not support the material. The "right wing" ref above does not support the material. As I read each of these refs I wonder if any of the refs support it. I'd rather not waste time reading material that is not relevant. Capitalismojo (talk) 15:57, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It most certainly does. Why don't you read the math in the secondary sources if you can't amortize? EllenCT (talk) 05:23, 25 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I have now read each of your refs. None of them say what you have averred. These refs do not support you. To have wasted our time adding references that do not support the edit is galling. I now understand why you refused to pull out a quote or even a page number. There is no support for your edits in the refs. I can only conclude that you have either inferred it or made it up. Either way, I am appalled. Capitalismojo (talk) 15:16, 30 January 2014 (UTC)


 * For what mathematical reason do you believe the cited amortizations do not support the statement? How much time have you spent looking for reliable sources on the topic? EllenCT (talk) 02:45, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * EllenCT, the onus is on you to demonstrate how the sources support your statement. You've been asked, and you have not answered except to ask a question about his/her "mathematical reason".  That's evasive and more evidence that you have no source to support your POV.  As it happens, I did look for sources and one that I found, that directly addresses the question, is here . It found it's not conclusive that government subsidies of education have a positive ROI.  As I recall, you didn't like it and have chosen to ignore it.  Mattnad (talk) 13:58, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * If you have an inconclusive source suggesting that a peer reviewed secondary source is inaccurate, it is your burden to show that yours is more reliable. EllenCT (talk) 03:46, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * EllenCT, you have not provided any sources to refute on this topic. But perhaps we missed it.  Please quote your "peer reviewed secondary source" that says "Government investment in college tuition subsidies usually pay for themselves many times over in additional tax revenue". Mattnad (talk) 10:17, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Alternate sources
Have the new sources in this edit really been rejected? Some of them are new. Together, they corroborate. There are multiple secondary sources. EllenCT (talk) 23:07, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * "Together they corroborate" = WP:SYNMattnad (talk) 23:20, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find where the publications support the statements that "public subsidy of college tuition will increase the net present value of income tax receipts". I see the same issues that we've already discussed in the past.  You're joining A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by the sources.   Morphh   (talk) 02:02, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Then you didn't read them. Do I have to excerpt specific passages? Which of the specific sources did you read looking for propositions relative to that quotation? EllenCT (talk) 00:37, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
 * There was a lot to read, so it's certainly possible I missed it in the 3 sources I looked at. So yes, an excerpt with the specific passage would be good.   Morphh   (talk) 02:08, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, while I'm thinking about it, I don't see how this is government spending as described in this article. In most cases, such offsets are a tax deduction or credit (part of the tax code, not spending) or alternatively a transfer payment, which is also not classified as government spending as described here.  So even with a source, I think it would be out of scope in this article.  Morphh   (talk) 02:23, 22 May 2014 (UTC) 02:23, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This point about transfer payments was recently re-raised at above. If any of the data in the tables, graphs, or text includes transfer payment money, it cannot be used here.  – S. Rich (talk) 03:05, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

tax burden/revenue & the comparison being provided – please explain
Does "tax burden" equal "tax revenue"? If so, the listing should have the title tax revenue. But, more importantly, why is a "for comparison" being made or provided? – S. Rich (talk) 05:06, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Lead and "current expenditure"
Given that the source added is US, and refers to "Government current expenditure", and that the previous text was sourced to what appears to be a EU source, is there a political component to this differentiation? I note that the BEA source includes a link to this pdf.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 16:21, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Lede opening problem; transfer payments ARE government spending.
The article is about "Government spending", not "Types of government spending used to calculate GDP". Numerous sources count transfer payments as government spending, as indeed most of the rest of this article does, including (but not limited to) the big chart we have lower on the page. The current lede opens by focusing overly narrowly on "national income accounting" (which basically means calculating GDP), and claims that transfer payments are not counted as government spending as such. Since this isn't the "National income accounting" article, I restored an earlier opening sentence removed without explanation a while back concisely defining government spending per this article's scope, while adding a new BEA source.....

"Government spending or expenditure includes all government consumption, investment, and transfer payments."

...and I adaptively tweaked the following segment to retain the "national income accounting" info, which was frankly reasonable of me. My edits were rapidly reverted by Ubikwit for reasons his edit summary don't quite make clear. Since countless reliable sources describe transfer payments as government spending, including many already on this page, and no source has been presented which says they aren't government spending, I'd like him to explain why he reverted here, and give a rational, compelling objection to the change if he has one. VictorD7 (talk) 16:36, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Update - I just noticed that Ubikwit started his own section above a few minutes ago, but I'd ask that he reply to this section since mine lays out the basis of the issue so other readers will know what we're talking about. VictorD7 (talk) 16:42, 11 July 2014 (UTC)


 * You may very well be right. I just checked the new source you provided and noted that the description included the qualifying term "current", which is why I started the above section. I'm not trying to outright refute your assertion, just want to see consensus here per BRD, since the edit seems to represent a somewhat radical departure, and the source contains a qualifying term.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 16:43, 11 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Actually the other pertinent category in the source I provided is the third one, titled "Total government expenditures", which includes everything in the previous categories (including transfer payments) and then some. I'll also note, in case anyone's confused, that the chart lower on the page is about government spending as a percentage of GDP, not the percentage of GDP made up of government spending, which is why at least one entity is well over 100%. VictorD7 (talk) 16:47, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with Victor that government spending does usually include Transfer Payments - it's part of the government budget and spending policies - the largest part often described in the U.S. as mandatory spending.  Unless, as Victor states, we're talking about spending as a percentage of GDP because such would double count the transfer payment since the spending is not on the government itself.  I expect we would probably qualify the instance when government spending would exclude transfer payments.   Morphh   (talk) 19:45, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Unbalanced POV in the lede.
The lede includes a paragraph on Keynesianism, which has three sentences outlining Keynesian views on the matter and an argument in its favor containing two specific examples (the Great Depression and World War II). That's followed by a single sentence saying Classical economists take a very different view of government spending's impact but offering no argument or examples. To balance this obvious skew, I added a sentence briefly stating that critics of Keynesianism have a different view of government's impact on the Great Depression and World War II, leaving the intro far more neutrally balanced (albeit still with three pro Keynesian sentences to only two anti-Keynesian ones).

My edit lasted for about three days, but was then reverted by LK. His edit summary read: "Balance does not mean include mainstream and fringe views equally, especially poorly sourced OR."  Except that until my edit the entire paragraph contained no sources (and currently doesn't because of his revert), and the source I used was a very well referenced scholarly piece hosted at the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics written by Dr. Gene Smiley, a Professor Emeritus of Economics at Marquette University and former President of the Economic and Business Historical Society. LK's assertion of "OR" is without basis. My sentence repeated what the source said. I added no facts or conclusions of my own. In fact since it's a broad survey laying out arguments and listing prominent economists from various schools, it could even be viewed as a source for the currently unsourced preceding segment.

It's also not clear that LK understands Wikipedia policy on "fringe". The NPOV policy lists examples of "fringe" being things like the flat earth theory or moon landing hoax conspiracy theories. Clearly free market critics of Keynesianism don't fall into that category, as their ranks boast numerous Nobel Prize winning economists, they've published countless works, and their views have impacted policy in the US and around the world. Policy says "Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without bias." Clearly free market critics of Keynesianism constitute a significant "side" here, whether they're deemed a "minority" or not. Minority is not "fringe". By not deleting the alternative "classical economists" sentence, LK seems to be acknowledging that the alternative view deserves a mention. All I'm doing is fulfilling the policy demand of fairly explaining the sides by acknowledging that critics are aware of Keynesian arguments on the Great Depression and WW2, and interpret those events differently. Including one argument but not the other is blatant POV.

I said earlier that the paragraph doesn't belong in the lede anyway since the intro should just be explaining what government spending is (maybe tacking on a single sentence mentioning there's a difference of agreement on its economic impact with policy implications), but if it's to remain then I would like LK to provide a compelling, rational argument why it should retain its current POV skew. VictorD7 (talk) 16:22, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Map Of Europe - NPOV
The colour coding for the Map referring to Europe is clearly loaded, the colour scheme should be a one colour gradient. Putting the higher numbers as red and lower as green is a biased representation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.193.198.189 (talk) 18:41, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Government spending per sector
Perhaps we can add in the government spending per sector table from eurostat (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Government_expenditure_by_function_%E2%80%93_COFOG ) ? Probably the most remarkable thing to note from the tables btw is that the some sectors (like sport --> stadium subsidies, ...) are still in there (and is even still quite high, relatively speaking, see http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Government_expenditure_on_recreation,_culture_and_religion ), even at times when there are far more pressing problems where investment is needed in (and which result in loss of citizens lives when not done; ie investment in greening the power production is more pressing due to loss of lives due to climate change, loss of lives also occur due to poverty (as this has an impact on the living conditions of some citizens, and can thus indirectly cause their demise, ...) KVDP (talk) 07:38, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Mogues's comment on this article
Dr. Mogues has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"Regarding this para: "Per capita[edit] In 2010 the average national government spent $2,376 per citizen, whilst the average for the world's 20 largest economies (in terms of GDP) was $16,110 per citizen. Norway and Sweden topped the list with per citizen spending of $40,908 and $26,760 respectively. The federal government of the USA spent an average of $11,041 per citizen (per capita), ahead of only South Korea ($4,557), Brazil ($2,813), Russia ($2,458), China ($1,010), and India ($226) in the twenty largest world economies.[8] The figures below, indicate 41.6% of GDP spending and a GDP per capita of $54,629, which suggests and total per person government spending of $22,726 in the U.S."

Comment: This para is part of a section called "International government spending" but provides information on selected countries only. I propose adding a second para that provides an overview of broad regions in the world. Here is a proposed second para:

"In the 1980s, total expenditure in high-income countries reached US$7500 per capita, about 19 times the level in developing countries. Over the three decades of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, per capita total expenditure experienced strong growth with an annual growth rate of 1.3 per cent. This growth accelerated over time: 0.9 per cent in the 1980s, 0.6 per cent in the 1990s and 3.5 per cent in the 2000s. Growth of per capita total expenditure has been much faster in developing economies than in developed countries, and the average annual growth rate was 2.7 percentage points higher in developing countries."

This is based on the following citation: Bingxin Yu, Shenggen Fan, and Eduardo Magalhaes (2015). "Trends and Composition of Public Expenditures: A Global and Regional Perspective". European Journal of Development Research 27(3): 353-370."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Mogues has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


 * Reference : Fan, Shenggen & Mogues, Tewodaj & Benin, Sam, 2009. "Setting priorities for public spending for agricultural and rural development in Africa:," Policy briefs 12, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 13:55, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Winer's comment on this article
Dr. Winer has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"The topics Government Spending, and Public Expenditure are one and the same. I would combine them under the term Public Expenditure."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Winer has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


 * Reference : J. Stephen Ferris & Stanley L. Winer, 2006. "Politics, political competition and the political budget cycle in Canada, 1870 - 2000: a search across alternative fiscal instruments," Carleton Economic Papers 06-05, Carleton University, Department of Economics.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 15:48, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

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External links modified
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Proposed merge of Public expenditure into Government spending
Appears to be the same topic. Government expenditure redirects to Public expenditure, while Public spending, Government expense, Public purse and Public money redirects to Government spending. Government spending has a chart describing Government Expenditure as a Percentage of GDP. From the articles, with emphasis added: "Public expenditure is spending made by the government of a country on collective needs and wants, such as pension, provisions (which includes education, healthcare and housing), security, infrastructure, etc." "Government spending or expenditure includes all government consumption, investment, and transfer payments." Even if they are different topics, the distinction appears to be subtle and can be discussed in a single article. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 14:08, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Also see Talk:Government spending where Dr. Winer proposed to merge Government spending and Public expenditure. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 14:11, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Support merger. WP:BB and do it.!!!! – S. Rich (talk) 02:51, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Support proposed merger: articles cover the same concept, materials are currently different but mergeable. - BobKilcoyne (talk) 12:59, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Support Go ahead with the proposal. 2001:8003:900C:5301:80DE:9FBE:80BE:AD01 (talk) 07:17, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support Seems to be an uncontroversial clarification. --Økonom (talk) 14:12, 1 August 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 07:25, 12 August 2023 (UTC)