Economic Insights – March 2016

The biggest reason the U.S. has slow-but-steady growth rather than an economic boom is the growth in the size and scope of the federal government. It metaphorically sits like a morbidly obese jockey atop an otherwise healthy race horse.

After being constrained in the 1980s under President Reagan and then in the 1990s in President Clinton’s first six years in office, it started creeping upward again.

At first, it didn’t seem like a big deal. The economy was booming in the late 1990s, and so the increase in spending was hard to notic.....