Friday, April 01, 2011

So how large a share should the state take ?

Just wondering to myself how large a share of GDP the state should take ?

I think it was 35 or 37% some time before Gordon Brown got to work, but now its closing in on 50%.

What should our Target be ?

I ask as it seems to me there needs to be a counter to the self interested greed of the public sector unions and there wholy funded subsidiary the Labour party.

Are there any cases made online for what it should be ?

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

For once thats not a bad question. When I was working in the civil service (as distinct from local government) public spending's share of GDP was just under 40% after Mrs Thatcher had done her bit to reduce it. I don't know where the additional 10%came from but it didn't go to my department. Thats been reduced to a shadow of what it was even post Margaret. Millbank, which used to be a hive of bureaucratic activity 7 years ago, is now a ghost town. The unions have been almost an irrelevence in the civil service for years although perhaps not the professional associations like the BMA. If all the unions can do is call a demo it really is a last gasp. They aren't worth the energy you put into demonising them. Perhaps you should concentrate on the banking system and the NHS.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 2 says
It's 23% of GDP.

0 - 15% is swallowed by admin charges

15 - 23% provides increasing social and economic benefits.

>23% increasingly negative effect on outputs.

Soure: IMF

Incidently, gov spending as %age of GDP actually rose under traitor Thatcher. This is a matter of record. Gov spending increased by 6% during her 'reign'.

James Higham said...

Around 20% should suffice. If it doesn't, it should and we need to adjust accordingly.

JohnofEnfield said...

The state's share of GDP got to 33% in 1999 after Gordon Brown followed the previous government's policies as he promised when elected.

When he was deposed in 2010 it was around 53% and his economic plans explicitly target the quadrupling of National Debt.

Ye gods.

neil craig said...

I did a poll on this sometime ago http://poll.pollcode.com/d5rS_result?v
and the median position was just over 20%.

My audience might be less than a random selection but it fitted remarkably well wiyh a Yougov poll which had just been about raising or lowering the proportion. http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/05/some-time-ago-i-did-poll-still-running.html