>If you compare to a benchmark like the 1940s, tax% of GDP has more than doubled, and GDP has increased ~4.5x. This means someone today pays about 10X the taxes (controlling for for inflation!). State and local taxes have grown even faster than federal taxes.
That's cherrypicking. Income tax as % of GDP basically has stayed the same at around 8% since after ww2. Most people wouldn't think of the entire time period past ww2 as "over the decades".
How's that surprising? The duties of the state isn't fixed. It can grow with time, hence greater spending in absolute terms. Not to mention stuff like cost disease causing prices to go up even for the same stuff.
I think it is interesting because similar % GDP seems to be treated steady state function of government, not one that inherently expansive.
For those of us that have been around for a while, it seems shocking that real, inflation controlled government taxes and spending per capitia is >2x that of the 80's, because experientially, many of the services seems no different, if not in decline.
I also think it is interesting to think about what government duties become more and less difficult to maintain with growth, and the implications for what types of objectives the government is well and poorly suited to achieve.
I think the Baumol effect is a helpful lens for exploring this, so I think you.
That's cherrypicking. Income tax as % of GDP basically has stayed the same at around 8% since after ww2. Most people wouldn't think of the entire time period past ww2 as "over the decades".