How Much Government Are You Willing to Fund? A Survey

Test if your preferences for government size align with your tax tolerance

There’s a popular illusion in Washington that seems to transcend party lines: that we can promise a lot from the government without ever asking the public to pay for it. But as Veronique de Rugy recently pointed out, this illusion is both economically dangerous and politically dishonest.

The fundamental purpose of the tax code is to raise revenue for the government that voters say they want. Yet in the United States, we’ve somehow decoupled the act of demanding government services from the responsibility of paying for them. Republicans pretend that tax cuts pay for themselves. Democrats imagine that only the rich need to pay for massively expanded entitlements. Meanwhile, deficits mount and debt grows, while the electorate is spared from facing any hard choices.

This brings us to a question we should be asking far more often:

How much government are Americans actually willing to fund?

It’s a simple but essential question—one that cuts through the distracting noise about “paying for tax cuts” and instead gets to the real issue: What’s the right size of government, and are voters willing to pay for it?

The Disconnect: What We Want vs. What We’re Willing to Fund

American’s consistently demand a bigger government than they are willing to pay for. And this is not a one-time glitch. It’s become a structural feature of American fiscal policy.

To illustrate this tension, we’ve designed a survey: a fiscal reality check of sorts. It asks readers to choose from five preferred tax changes and five preferred changes to federal spending (including entitlements). Then it shows you the outcome of those choices: whether your preferred tax burden can actually pay for the government you want.

The poll is structured around two simple questions. Only subscribers can answer the poll questions. Answers are anonymous. The polls will be open until Saturday, July 5. We will take the results from the poll and post the results next week. If you are interested in knowing what your choices say about your preference for government size, see the table below. An interactive version of the table is available here.

What your Choices say About your Preferences for Government Size

See the table below for your results. An interactive version of the table is available here. For mobile uses, results are available here.

Why This Matters

This exercise is more than a thought experiment. It helps clarify a simple but powerful point: if Americans want a big government, they need to be willing to pay for it. If they want a small government, they need to be honest about what must be cut.

As de Rugy noted, "to spend is to tax." When politicians avoid raising taxes to match the size of government, they aren't sparing the public from the burden of spending—they're just delaying the tax bill. Deficits are taxes on the future.

Nobel laureate James Buchanan warned of this dynamic. Deficit spending obscures the real cost of government and allows politicians to grow the state without immediate accountability. The public doesn’t revolt against higher taxes because they don’t see them yet. But eventually the bill comes due.

The End of the Free Lunch

We’re entering a world where borrowing is no longer cheap, and debt is no longer abstract. Higher interest costs are already crowding out public investment. The fiscal day of reckoning is approaching, and pretending we can fund Scandinavian-style benefits with a Reagan-era tax base is no longer viable.

This is why conversations about “paying for tax cuts” often miss the point. The more important question is: what are we willing to pay for, period? If we want more government, we need more taxes. If we want less government, we need to make cuts, not just gesture at them.

This survey isn’t a perfect fiscal model, but it’s a tool to encourage honesty. Honesty about tradeoffs. About costs. And about the moral hazard of demanding government services without paying for them.

So we invite you to take the survey and reflect on your preferences. What kind of government are you actually willing to fund?