It doesn’t matter if it is new or not. If you increase spending in real dollars for existing governement programs

“Let’s break down SS payments. In roughtly 5 years, the government will be paying at least double per month than what it does today. More people will be collecting in 5 years than they are today..The government will not increase because the payments are more. The government increased at the inception of the program.

The government increased when we added SS beneficiaries(illegals) that were not included in the orginal program.

If I use your formula, I don’t see government having grown under GWB. We are being taxed less, and keeping more in our pockets.

Ahh Peejz, and what you aren’t including is the national debt. How do you think it is paid? Yes…by taxes. But it is growing, not shrinking. It is a very basic formula when you boil it down. We spend more money than you have you must pay for it eventually.

Bush’s tax cut stimulated the economy, and I agree it was a good move. usually, the debt is measure as part of the GDP and cutting taxes increases that. But he has also increased government size, which is a bad move. Bush has increased real discretiuonary outlays by %35.8 thus far. But, I agree with the GWOT so just looking at non-dfefense discretionary outlays by 27.9%. I am a fiscal conservative. I think that non-defense discretionary outlays should be CCUT, like Reagan did (by 11%, FWIW). Reagan paid for his budget, as he only increased total outlays by 12%. Remember, this includes MASSIVE cold war spending and increased spending on the arm forces by 35%!

And it is paid for all eventually by us.

You have increased spending for new programs.

Let’s break down SS payments. In roughtly 5 years, the government will be paying at least double per month than what it does today. More people will be collecting in 5 years than they are today..The government will not increase because the payments are more. The government increased at the inception of the program.

The government increased when we added SS beneficiaries(illegals) that were not included in the orginal program.

If I use your formula, I don’t see government having grown under GWB. We are being taxed less, and keeping more in our pockets.

Of course, becasue you’ve increased governemet spending and the need for taxation. That is the standard. If you add programs using funds already available, then you have not increased government and the need for more tax.

If you have a program (lets say, the Vetern Administration) and cut the funding needed because there are just not as many veterns anymore then you decreased the governement size and the need for taxes.

Measuring the difference between capitalism and socialism has no bearing on what we are talking about..You can have a big capitalistic government just as you can have a big socialistic government.

It makes all the difference in what we are talking about. We are talking about governments and how various economies effect it.

You can not have a “capitalistic government”. You have a government that runs a country with a capitalistic modeled economy though. If that the case, the money made is made by the private sector and not the government. The government is smaller.

You can not have a “communist government” either. You have a government that runs a country with a capitalistic modeled economy though. It is a type of economy that the government owns all production of the citizens. The government is much larger, because they own everything.

There is no such thing as a pure “communist” or pure “capitalist” economy.

The degree of measure between communism and capitalism is called socialism. The more that the people are taxed, the more toward the communism end of the scale the country remains, and thus a larger government. The less people are taxed, the more towards capitalism a country is and the smaller the government.

If it walks like a duck…

Measuring the difference between capitalism and socialism has no bearing on what we are talking about..You can have a big capitalistic government just as you can have a big socialistic government.

If we currently have 4 programs being funded by the government and add 2 brand new programs, we have increased the government.

I completely disagree. A basic fact of economics is that the degree between pure capitalism and pure communisim is known as socialism. Another basic fact of economics is that you can measure the degree of how socialist a country it by how much its citizens are taxed.

The more folks are taxed, the more socialist a country is. The more socialist a country is the bigger the government. Never in the history of the world has governement size been measured by how many programs there are.

For example if we combined SS, medicare, welfare and FEMA under one program does that actually reduce the governement size? By your measurement it would because 4 programs have been combined into one. However to support that program people are taxed the same.

Spending increases means more active governemnt which translates into more governement inteference in our lives. Governement is not measured by how many programs it has, but by how much it taxes it’s citizenship, in addition to the governement debt created.

So, governemnet spending + governement debt=bigger governement.