Trends in the size of U.S. government are examined. In the postwar period, general government primary spending rose by 1⁄4 percent of GDP a year through 1975, stabilizing thereafter. With higher social transfers offset by a lower burden of defense spending, expansion reflected a baby-boom...

"As revealed by John Samples in his essential new book, the battle over the size and role of government has been raging for decades. Arriving at a critical time, with clashes over limiting government occupying more battlefields than ever, The Struggle to Limit Government chronicles this war's...