Are US Taxes Too High or Too Low? Choose Your Chart

The gap between US federal spending and tax revenue is currently bigger, as a share of gross domestic product, than it’s ever been outside of major war or other crisis. Is that because spending is too high or tax revenue too low?

“The federal government has a significant spending problem,” was Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent’s answer at his confirmation hearing last week. The historical data would seem to back him up: Federal revenue, at 17.1% of GDP during the last fiscal year, was at just about the post-World War II average of 17.2%, but spending was 23.4% compared with an average of 19.8%.

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