Some Perspective on Big Government Spending

Apparently, the plural of ‘census’ is not ‘censii’ but if it were, I’d say we’ve been doing censii forever, or at least since 1790. When the country was founded, a proper census was required to establish the makeup of the House of Representatives. When the results were tabulated, there were about 3.93 million freshly minted Americans.

A spanking new federal government was in place, although much smaller in scope than we’re accustomed to. With objectives limited to a handful of things like fighting any necessary wars, setting up a postal system, standardizing weights and measures and protecting natural rights, the budget was modest to say the least. Limited scope or not, these things still cost money, so the government had a budget of about $3.69 million in 1792 dollars. So, the concept of government spending has been a thorn in our side for a while.

Colonial Efficiency

If we consider that first national budget in today’s dollars, that $3.69 million would translate to about $121 million. You know, inflation.

Doing some quick math, the new federal bureaucracy spent about $30.73 per citizen on various projects. Yes, you read that right. The government spent the equivalent of dinner for four at McRonalds. In today’s dollars. And that was for the entire year.

Pork-splosion

Things have changed a bit since then. For fiscal year 2024, federal spending hit $6.75 Trillion. That’s with a “T,” just to be clear. You know, a thousand billion. Of course, we’ve grown a bit, too, so some of that spending is to cover the additional 342 million folks around here.

However, when you look at the per-person budget, it’s apparent our politicians have become just a bit more extravagant. We’re long past the dinner with Ronald, as each citizen’s share of the budget is now a whopping $19,508.67 per year.

Perspective

No question about it: our population has grown significantly over the past 234 years—by a factor of 88 if you do the math.

But spending laid a hand on population growth’s shoulder and whispered, “Hold my beer.” Federal spending has outpaced population growth by just a bit, growing by a factor of 635 when you consider everything in today’s dollars and on a per capita basis.

You could look at the spending explosion in a slightly different way. While the population has grown by a factor of 88, total spending, again in current dollars, has increased by a factor of 55,785.12.