RALEIGH – America remains exceptional. When it comes to the growth of government and dependency, however, American exceptionalism has been eroding a bit in recent years.
Both the Right and Left sometimes exaggerate the extent to which, say, America and Europe disagree on matters of public policy. For example, in past columns I’ve noted that the differences between American and European health-care policies have been both exaggerated and misunderstood.
And in the area of school choice, to take a hot political topic, the Europeans are on balance closer to the American conservative position – in favor of increased choice and competition – than they are to the liberal position of maintaining government monopoly.
On the other hand, I’ve also written about persistent differences in happiness between Americans and Europeans, and how they likely reflect differences in culture, religiosity, and policy choices. It remains no exaggeration to say that American government is smaller, less costly, and more respectful of individual freedom than are the governments of most European countries. Respect for freedom tends to correlate with happiness, or more properly, with the broader concept of subjective well-being.
If you want to see a visual representation of the continue difference in governmental philosophy and structure, follow this link to a news article featuring a graph of data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Rather than comparing shares of gross domestic product consumed by government, this graph compares the share of average household income received as net transfers from the government – that is, cash benefits received after subtracting taxes paid.
On average, households in the OECD countries receive about 22 percent of their income from government transfer payments. The French and Swedes are far more dependent on such transfers, at 33 percent of average household income. The Germans, Spanish, and Japanese are closer to the average.
English-speaking countries are significantly below the average. And the U.S. is lowest of all the major OECD members, at 9 percent of household income derived from government tranfers.
Keep in mind that the statistic refers only to cash benefits, such as unemployment compensation or disability benefits. Add in the value of non-cash benefits such as health insurance and subsidized housing, and the percentages would soar. But if anything, the gap between the U.S. and OECD countries would grow, not shrink.
For advocates of liberty, limited government, and American leadership, our relatively low dependence on forced redistribution of income constitutes good news. Unfortunately, there is also bad news. American dependency used to be much lower. In recent years, massive expansions of federal spending have set the stage for a higher level of dependency – an increase likely to be lasting until reformers get elected to state and federal office and enact fundamental changes in fiscal policy immediately.
One other thing to keep in mind is that the level of dependency on government does not correlate positively with the level of personal generosity in a society. If anything, the correlation would be negative. Americans are among the most generous people on Earth – with their own money. At the same time, they are less likely than their counterparts in other developed countries to think it’s okay for government to use fiscal policy to redistribute their income without their permission.
It can’t be said too many times: government is not charity. It is force. Most Americans feel compelled by our faith, our beliefs, or the character of our personal relationships to give our time and money to causes of our choice.
We just resent being compelled at the point of a gun to surrender our time or money to others to spend, on causes we might well have never chosen. We cherish our freedom, in other words.
It seems we remain exceptional in that way.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.