Government spending is excessively harmful precisely because it’s the central planning of precious goods, services and labor by the federal government. Conservatives and libertarians at one time nodded along to the latter, while progressives and liberals rolled their eyes. Not so much today. As this write-up’s title indicates, they’ve become one.
See Patricia Cohen at the New York Times. In a recent front-page article at the newspaper, Cohen lamented soaring national debt in rich nations since “it means countries must make interest payments with money that otherwise could have paid for health care, roads, public housing, technological advances or education.”
Historically there would have been a response from conservatives critiquing the idea of government spending as the solution to most anything, but the tone has sadly changed. In a recent post put together by the frequently excellent editors at right-leaning Kite and Key Media, they lamented the cost of Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare for them limiting federal spending in the present on “better schools, a bigger military, improved health care, tougher border enforcement.”
In the same article by Cohen, she quotes Harvard economics professor Kenneth Rogoff as expressing dismay about the debt given his view that “You want to be able to spend big and spend fast when you need to.” Rogoff comes from the left, but nowadays the thinking is similar on the right.
Take the increasingly market liberal individuals at the Washington Post’s editorial board. In a recent editorial there, they channeled Cohen and Rogoff with their contention that “The government loses its capability to spend more on defense or social programs in the face of ever-rising debt,” and that “the federal government has become woefully unprepared for any major emergency or recession.” Again, little difference between the allegedly warring ideologies. Not enough evidence?
In an opinion piece from 2023, left-leaning former Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell foretold Kite and Key’s 2026 commentary with her unhappy observation that “Medicare and Social Security” will “continue to crowd out future spending obligations.” Which wasn’t much different from a policy analysis penned at the libertarian Cato Institute in the same year that “As entitlements consume a larger share of the budget, this exerts downward pressure on other budget priorities.”
Which further underscores the point that there used to be differences between left and right about government spending. No longer. Now, seemingly the biggest difference has to do with what programs the federal government could be spending money on but for spending promises made in the past.
The world is upside down. Again, it’s expected that members of the left would decry a growing inability of the federal government to centrally plan new societal fixes. Where it’s once again troubling is that the members of the right increasingly parrot the left. They need a re-think. Exactly because huge federal outlays from the past have failed so substantially, let’s not pretend as the right now do that the federal government has resource allocation skills that it plainly lacked in the past.
As for the debt, at some point both sides will come to the realization that debt matters, but as a rather unfortunate effect of too much tax revenue now, and the market expectation of much more in the future. For now, a simple acknowledgement from the right that government spending hurts instead of helping would be a welcome advance.
Originally published on Real Clear Markets.
