Hifibri, you are right. I should've said spending increase instead of spending. I compared 1962 and 2013 spending itself, adjusted for inflation and population minus two fold increase in military spending (adjusted for inflation) and payment on the debt and came up with $8.4k per capita now to $2.4k per capita in 1962. I'm not sure what the reasons are but huge increase in spending took place during Bush years. Running two wars, returning taxes and creating largest government in history took toll. This largest government was due to Homeland Security - largest government agency ever. Homeland Security budget is $70 billion a year. It is best example of bureaucracy, having multiple agencies that don't know about each other, doing exactly the same. Another factor is 6% going for payments on the debt that started big with Reagan who created 3.7 Trillion Debt - equal to perhaps double that in todays money. Spending is too high but the worst thing one can do is to avoid paying (from tax increase) because somebody will pay it anyway, either we or our children (with interest). A lot of money go to welfare but so far nobody, republicans or democrats is interested in reforms. Current welfare law supports not working. Instead we oppose public healthcare or education that IMHO should not be business oriented.
Taxes are one of the lowest in the world but spread hysteria about being overtaxed causes very negative effects. Nobody wants to invest in any efficient long term program because it means being voted out of office. I remember discussion about Expressway reconstruction in Chicago area when they were not sure if it is worth to pay twice more for the road that lasts 4x longer. Any sensible person would say it is good deal (especially when they stand in traffic) but it was rejected. At the end we pay double because nobody wants to spend money now. We don't pay higher income tax percentage than before (I think) but big portion of tax revenue disappeared because of tax loopholes, companies going of shore and rich people keeping money in other countries. A lot of large corporations don't pay any tax at all.
