The economist has said this for decades.<p>Meanwhile the US life expectancy has been decreasing.<p>And countries with huge governments like France have been doing just fine.<p>Also running a similar deficit than US.<p>Even being libertarian, I have common sense to acknowledge that those takes are plain stupid.<p>It's all about how the money is spent, not if it's public or private.<p>I bet most money spent by the government in the US is in entitlements, not infra or any kind of subsidies to key industries. So yeah, very inefficient!
Before the Conservatives jump all over the article, the full article has a few key caveats.<p>1. Spending on stuff, like infrastructure and public services, is substantially down. In the chart, the US has never spent less as a percentage of GDP providing public services.<p>2. Public sector employment has long been in decline.<p>3. Entitlements are crowding out everything else.