By Randall Hoven,American Thinker
America has surpassed Europe in era of Obama
There has been much talk recently that the US is becoming more like Europe. To be more technically accurate,we should say that the US is becoming more like what Europe used to be. In the meantime,Europe is un-Europeanizing. We are about to make France look like a holdout for rugged individualism.
Plenty of sophisticated observers,including Mark Steyn and Claudia Rosett,have said the US is undergoing Europeanization.
Too late. In February of 2008,I said that we are just another European country now. Exactly one year later,Newsweek agreed with me,under the title “We are all socialists now”and the subtitle,“In many ways our economy already resembles a European one. As boomers age and spending grows,we will become even more French.”
While many of us ask whether Obama is a socialist,and he continues to deny it,the question becomes less and less relevant. Yes,of course he is. But so is everyone,or every developed country.
Socialism is not so much a “yes or no”type question. It is more a matter of degree. We can put a number on it by using total government spending as a fraction of GDP as a proxy for degree of socialism. And for that,we have Table 1315 of the US Statistical Abstract as a data source.