The US government has doubled in size. Are you better off?

If you’re old enough to remember— think back to the year 1999.

Some of the year’s most popular movies included The Matrix, Fight Club, and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. The euro made its international debut. Vladimir Putin became Prime Minister of Russia.

And over in the US, President Bill Clinton narrowly escaped conviction in the Senate for obstruction and perjury charges related to his sex scandal.

1999 was also one of the last years of an unprecedented economic boom in the United States; the economy was so strong, in fact, that the federal government managed to run a significant budget surplus of around $128 billion (worth roughly $230 billion today).

Total federal spending for FY99 was $1.7 trillion; that’s about $3.1 trillion in 2023 dollars. I bring that up because, recently, the guy who shakes hands with thin air released his latest budget proposal for the next fiscal year.

It calls for nearly SEVEN TRILLION DOLLARS in federal spending.

So, even after adjusting for inflation, the Big Guy’s budget is more than TWICE as big as the federal budget was in 1999.

What exactly are taxpayers receiving in exchange for all that extra spending?

You’d think that if the government is spending twice as much, that taxpayers would be receiving AT LEAST twice as much benefit… or would see twice as much government service.

Are there twice as many federal highways? Is the military twice as strong? Is Social Security twice as solvent

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