It s hard to think of a Western country where the size of government, and with it the tax burden, has not gone up and then up again since the 1960s. I know of no evidence to the contrary. Democracy is one of those dull words you hardly see on the page, and I only recently noticed stable democracy. But it s worth considering. The franchise has been extended to everyone, and all literacy tests are illegal.
Most people have only the haziest idea of what is going on in Washington.
They rely on people like Peter Jennings of ABC News to tell them. There are no constitutional barriers to the redistribution of wealth. Tens of millions of people are eligible for entitlement programs, and the Democratic Party stands ready to fight to increase their benefits and win their votes and gratitude. Economic reality dictates that the tax-supported classes can only grow so large, of course. In the Western world, they have probably already topped out.