Let’s not get lost in the tullies, all of the above discussions are on the margin. Simple fact is…at some point the well runs dry. The new administration is just trying to find the bottom of the well.

I beg to differ. The fact that family size was slightly smaller 30-40 years ago doesn’t make that much of a difference.

I admit my post was thoroughly screwed by its discontinuity. So I did not elaborate earlier

The inference of Wretchards post was that not only has government grown significantly faster than household income, government control and intrusion has grown significantly as well. Household income growth used to restrain the growth of government. No longer. The Democrats have found many creative ways of circumventing funding restrictions. Debt and imposing regulations on the production side to fund or provide services previously thought to be government responsibility are just two of the many schemes that have been hatched.

Back to household prosperity. That analysis has to broken down into at least three areas based upon where someone lives. Those areas being Large Democrat and Union controlled older cities, newer emerging suburban Cities and rural areas. The costs of living for family households have skyrocketed in the more intrusive Democrat controlled older cities because of the costs of enabling the victim class which has grown enormously over the years. That same bureaucracy needed to service the victim class has also driven away jobs from the old line industrial cities to the newer emerging cities and rural areas. Piling on those trends is another trend to where the victim class and illegals seek out those Democrat controlled cities that are more hospitable to their rent seeking.

So as a consequence, several shifts in household prosperity are happening all at once, and the prosperity situation can vary significantly as a consequence. Not only is the Federal and State governments increasing generally their cost, regulatory and control burden, but on the State and Local level depending on how it is governed, the situation can vary markedly depending on locale.

As a result, average statistics may not give a clear picture as to what is happening nationally. However it needs to be noted that while in some areas, particularly the newer emerging areas, family prosperity may be rising, in many areas of the country, family standard’s of living have fallen drastically. LA City is a good example of the prototypical emerging city becoming a constipated static Democrat Socialist playground and the consequences speak for themselves.The ratio of home prices to income went from roughtly 2 to 1 to 10 to 1 in thirty years. It is so bad and unruly that household income is difficult to quantify. No one knows exactly how many illegals are there and how much they make so the income numbers are suspect and there are differing stats depending on who you ask.

Generally greater government has meant falling standards of living. It is not for nothing that two incomes are now required in many areas to support a family where one average income used to suffice nicely.

The trend to greater government spending vis a vis household income, is not a
good one. Your argument seems to support the idea that household prosperity can survive greater government spending, control and intrusion. Household prosperity for most of the country, still concentrated in the older cities, has declined as this huge increase in government spending and control has occurred.

This time of potentially unprecedented growth in government power from the Obama administration is not the time to argue that this era is more prosperous. It is not. For the upper 10% and in some areas perhaps. Elsewhere not.

I think one of the major reasons the Republicans lost so badly is that they are not addressing the causes for the high cost of urban living and prosperity squeeze happening there. The Republicans in many ways have grown out of touch.

We all wish it had gone up more but bending the number to try and prove our argument is, I believe, unhelpful.

The best argument for reduced government is that government subsidy of bad cultural traits keeps people from making necessary changes in their behavior and as a result they stay poor. You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax. Most conservatives seem to have a very hard time making this argument without sounding racist.

Greg Marquez
goyomarquez@earthlink.net

And private school not a requirement in 1970? Puh-leeze. US public school curricula in 1973 was 1-2 years behind both US private (in my case, Catholic) school curricula and European (in my case, Spain) curricula. Why else would a family of Cuban refugees decide to take on 3rd and 4th and 5th jobs, moving into crushingly higher marginal income tax brackets, and paying local taxes for pitiful public schools that lost 10-20 school days every year due to teachers strkes and janitors strikes and bus drivers strikes, only to spend those increasingly-harder to earn dollars on private school tuition?
Speaking of which, you didn’t compare the task burden in 1970 to today. Hint: marginal tax rates were 2-3 times higher in the 60′s & 70′s than in the period of 1980-today.