Report highlights how spending trends have fueled fiscal deficits

Although the economic recession has contributed to Louisiana’s ominous deficit, a new report from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University stresses that state spending trends meant the problem was building for decades.

Between 1987 and 2007, Louisiana’s government spending grew at almost three times the rate of private sector spending. On a per capita basis, adjusted for inflation, government spending increased by 150 percent, and according to Matthew Mitchell, author of the study, that trend was “simply unsustainable.”

“There would eventually come a point where the entire Louisiana economy is government. So clearly it can’t go on forever. Spending cannot constantly outpace the growth of the economy as a whole.”

Click here for the full article and a twelve minute interview with Matthew Mitchell.

Fergus Hodgson is the Capitol Bureau Reporter with the Pelican Institute for Public Policy.