The budget as mirror

The shifting boundaries between the political and the private are reflected in the ratio (hereafter rendered G/Y) of government expenditures to the national income. In this sense the budget can be seen, according to Kurt Heinig, as a mirror of the sociopolitical situation. If taken lightly, this image is illuminating. Upon reflection, it becomes dubious. One might say that the mirror is funny: Important types of government intervention (cruel prosecution under a dictatorship) can be introduced or abolished without government expenditures showing what is happening. Regulatory power in economic affairs is not necessarily proportional to the number of government employees. On the other hand, some substantial increases in public outlays reflect not so much increasing government operations as transfers between citizens, for instance, the prosperous expansion of the grants economy. Another shortcoming of G/Y as a measure of the balance between the activities of governments and governed is that budgets do not reveal the full size of activities on behalf of the authorities, which are often costly. For instance, the labor of the tax-filing, tax-paying citizen is nowhere registered. As shifts between the public and the private domain are occurring in opposite directions it is not certain that their net impact is truly measured by the increase in G/Y. The recent retreat of some European governments on the issues of abortion, homosexuality, and pornography did not lead to a significant decrease in government outlays; but the substantial advance in education, housing, and welfare did lead to strong and sometimes explosive increases.