RSSSpending and Taxes as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product 1980-2007
This chart combines the data from Government Spending as a Percentage of GDP and Tax Collections as a Percentage of GDP. Although the recent deficits (2001-2007) appear large in absolute dollar figures (Chart Federal Surpluses and Deficits), when viewed as a percentage of GDP the results may be surprising. Of the 24 deficit years shown in the chart, the deficits in nine of those years (1982-1986 and 1990-1993) were actually larger as a percentage of GDP than any of the post-2000 deficits
6 Responses to “Spending and Taxes as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product 1980-2007”
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July 27th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
The highest rate of employment, in other words, the percentage of people over the age of 16 with jobs occurred when the tax revenues were highest when Clinton was president and taxes were high relative to either Bush or Reagan-Bush.
The one big Reagan tax cut cut revenue drastically because the tax cuts resulted in the loss of millions of jobs, which started coming back or were added to with new jobs after Reagan started signing tax hikes to undo his tax cuts.
If you chart the change in employment from the point of tax law changes, you will see that employment almost always falls after a tax cut, while employment almost always increases after taxes are increased.
Employment started increasing with the Read-my-lips-Bush tax hikes and continued increasing after Clinton hiked taxes even more. Employment fell steeply after Bush signed his first tax cut and then fell even steeper after he signed his second tax cut a year later. Only if emplpyers knew that 911 was going to happen two months later and started layoffs in anticipation can you blame the falling employment on 911.