In whatever direction we turn, we find the heavy hand of government intruding into virtually every aspect of American society. Indeed, it has reached the point that it would be a lot easier to list those areas of people's lives into which government does not impose itself – and, alas, it would be a very short list. But it was not always that way.
Around a hundred years ago, say, in the first decade of the 20th century, all levels of government in the United States only taxed away and spent about 8 percent of national income, leaving 92 percent of what individuals had produced and earned in their own hands to use and spend as they thought best as free people.
Plus, there was no regular deficit spending because the federal government in Washington, D.C. annually balanced its budget; and it often even ran budget surpluses with which it paid down government debts accumulated during past "national emergencies," usually a war that had earlier needed rapid funding with borrowed money.
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