This essay is the first of a series of Heartland Policy Briefs that addresses entitlement reform. In this document he writes that,
Soon after World War II, U.S. federal government spending as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP) stabilized at around 20 percent. It remained there until President Barack Obama took office. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that on our current course, under current policies, federal spending would soar to 30 percent of GDP by 2027, 40 percent by 2040, 50 percent by 2060, and 80 percent by 2080. Add in state and local government spending, and we are literally on a course toward full-blown communism, where the government takes and spends everything the economy produces.
Obama has exacerbated this problem. Federal spending soared to 25 percent of GDP in his very first year in office, breaking through the long-term, bipartisan, consensus.
Peter Ferrara, J.D., is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute and an advisor for entitlement reform and budget policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation.
