In 1906, Werner Sombart, the German economist, explained America's resistance to socialism in five words, "roast beef and apple pie," his shorthand for affluence. In 2020, however, semisocialism has come to a United States that is stunningly wealthier — real per-capita income six times larger than in 1906; today's superiority of purchasable products, from antibiotics to smartphones — than 114 years ago.
This year is drenched with politics, yet the nation seems oblivious that coming decades of American governance have been irrevocably shaped by what Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute calls "the largest single 'state surge' in American history," a "tidal wave of public resources": debt.
In June alone, the federal government's $864 billion budget deficit was larger than the deficit in all of fiscal 2017. And fiscal 2018. In eight years, the Reagan administration almost tripled the national debt, to $2.9 trillion, but that sum is less than Congress has increased the debt in the past nine months. Because both parties have a powerful permanent incentive to disburse more current government services than current revenues will fund, the pre-pandemic deficit in fiscal 2019 was already almost $1 trillion — at full employment, with 2.3% gross domestic product growth.