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Show Gov't Spending Tops $283 Billion Boring Pas! Year, Study Indicates Federal, State, and local governmental units across the nation spent a total of 52G3 billion last year, according ac-cording to a study just completed com-pleted by Utah Foundation, the private tax research organization. or-ganization. This sum is equal to 41 per cent of the gross national product, a measure of all goods and services ser-vices produced in the United States.) The Foundation study points out that total government govern-ment spending during fiscal 1S63 was equal to $1,414 f-;r every man, woman, and child residing in the United States, or more than $5,650 for an average family of four persons. According to the Foundation Founda-tion analysts, government al spending throughout the United States has multiplied nearly 14 times over the past twenty-eight years. It has quadrupled since 1950 and has nearly doubled since 1960. Of the $283 billion in total governmental expenditures last year, $166 billion, or 59 per cent represented outlays by the Federal Government, and $116' billion, or 41 per cent, were direct expenditures expendi-tures by state and local units. The report points out, however, that approximately approximate-ly $18 billion of the state and local total consisted of funds received from the Federal Government. If expenditure ex-penditure totals are examined examin-ed in terms of the level of government responsible for raising the money, then spending w:ould be 65 pr cent Federal and 35 per cent state and local. Not only have governmental government-al expenditures in the United Unit-ed States risen dramatically over the years, but the Foundation Foun-dation study notes there also has been a radical shifting in the purposes for such expenditures. The most significant change has been in the area of national defense de-fense which now accounts for 37.5 percent of all general gen-eral government expenditures expendi-tures in the United States. Defense and related spending spend-ing made up 10.5 per cent of all government expenditures in 1902, 5.8 per cent in 1927, and 30.2 per cent in 1950. However, between 1950 and 1968, defense and related relat-ed expenditures in the United Unit-ed States rose by $70 billion while expenditures for all other general governmental purposes increased by $105 billion. In addition, special purpose expenditures (social security, government retirement, retire-ment, utility operations, etc) rose $37 billion during this period. The study also points out that the means of raising the increased sums of governmental govern-mental revenue have changed chang-ed appreciably. Income taxes tax-es (both individual and corp-orafle) corp-orafle) now constitutes nearly 58 per cent of all general governmental revenue in the nation. In 1902, income taxes were nonexistent in the United States. They made up 24 per cent of all revenue in 1927 and 54 per cent in 1950. Property taxes, on the other oth-er hand, have declined in importance during the present pres-ent century. In 1902, property proper-ty taxes made up more than 51 per cent of all revenues collected throughout the nation. na-tion. This percentage still was 50 per cent in 1927, but dropped to 14 per cent by 1950 and 15 per cent in 1968. |