The last time the level of government spending was at that 8% of GDP was 1933, before the New Deal. In that year, after years of extraordinary corporate profits, the banking system had collapsed, the unemployment rate was nearly 25%, prices and productivity were plummeting, wages were cratering, factories had shut down, farmers were losing their land to foreclosure. Children worked in the fields and factories, elderly and disabled people ate from garbage cans, unregulated banks gambled away people’s money, and business owners treated their workers as they wished.
This whole letter from Heather is great. I pulled the above because it shows where we were and where we could end up. If you read further down in the piece you’ll see exactly where our deficit comes from (Republican tax cuts, duh) and how government spending has consistently been at 20% of GDP since the New Deal. Where do these idiots think the money comes from when someone uninsured gets rushed to the ER and can’t afford to pay?