Hey, I was reading America’s Great Depression last night, and I was trying to look into the statistics Rothbard uses in his book. I was confused how he added up all of his numbers, and how he got his expenditures. For example, at the beginning of the 1930 chapter, he says Congress just approved a 915 million public works project (239). Then, when calculating the government’s expenditures for the year, he says on pg 255 that government expenditures rose by 800 (700 for state government, and 130 for federal government). How does that add up (700+130 does not equal 800), nor does that come close to 915 million for the Hoover Dam public works.
Secondly, I am confused as to where he gets his budget numbers from. He says that in 1932 government reduced its expenditures, but then goes on to say how the government started loaning out money to banks and businesses in trouble, and increasing public works. How does one go about doing that? He talks about transfer payments too, which I don’t understand, and I don’t understand what receipts are. And I am completely bewidlered about the Appendix, since Table VI and Table VII are exactly the same numbers but mean different things and contradict to Table IV.
If Congress approves $915 million this year, but last year it approved $200 million, that’s an increase of $715 million.
I’m pretty sure Rothbard is rounding. Government expenditures are never perfect like $800 million, $700 million, or $130 million.
He pretty clearly states that the federal government decreased transfer payments by $800 million and state and local grants by $200 million. States decreased construction by some $800 million as well. So it’s entirely possible that, as a whole (local+state+federal), the government reduced expenditures in 1932, but the federal government increased loans to federal institutions, as did the Federal Reserve (which wouldn’t show up in expenditure data).
I dont know what Rothbards sources are, but for your question on the public works spending, not being accounted for in the qouted years expenditure;
so congress approved a 915million public works project, that probably means money for it started to be paid out some time after they decided. Probably money doesnt get spent all at one but spread out over some period of time.
receipts would be what you take in (‘receive’), i.e. the funding for a particular project/department.
lets look at the tables:
yes, both VI and VII show the same numbers and do mean different things, one is receipts and one is expenditures. (of government and ‘government enterprises’)
IV is different in that it excludes government enterprises. im not sure if thats what you are asking for as thats pretty much what rothbard has labelled the charts as saying and i havent used any interpretation here.
Thanks alot for your response. I have one more regarding the deficit. On page 288, Rothbard talks “As a result, the huge Federal deficit continued despite a drop in government expenditures in 1932: Federal expenditures falling from 4.4 billion to 3.4 billion…Of the 1.7 billion in total government deficit, the bulk of it-1.4 billion-was in the Federal government account.”
In Rothbard’s leviathan, he says
Neither was Hoover lax in increasing the expenditures of the federal government. Federal expenditures rose from $3.3 billion in fiscal 1929 to $4.6 billion in fiscal 1932 and 1933, a rise of forty percent. Meanwhile, federal budget receipts fell in half, from $4 billion to less than $2 billion, demonstrating that Hoover was so much of a proto-Keynesian that he was willing to incur a deficit of nearly sixty percent of the budget. This was, to that moment, the largest peacetime federal deficit in American history.
Where is he geting 4.6 from? Is he including both years?
So, going on with what you said, are Federal expenditures not necessarily the same thing as Federal loans? so they could have reduced expenditures but raised loans? I appreciate your help in answering my questions, as you always do, no matter how tautologic or stupid they can be. I seem to get narrow mindly stuck on statistics and counting. Thanks
Thanks, I just seem befuddled a little bit since in table 4 he shows government expenditures going up, then latter on when he adds government enterprises, they go down.