In the U.S., at the federal level, discretionary money is being gobbled up by debt service.
Most service businesses pay minimal, if any, property or sales taxes.
France and England have seen similar drops in spending for government services. I think it's a permanent shift. He cites competition in police protection as just one example. Which means there are 2 million people earning their living in the private-sector cop business, clearly one of the businesses we thought we were in. Indeed, Gaebler notes that the fourth-largest police force in California today is not in Oakland or Sacramento, but at Bechtel Industries.