Should Government Spending Count as GDP? - by Peter St Onge

When we cut government waste, end useless wars, or deport welfare-case illegals, government statistics count it as making us poor. - Peter St Onge

Which is retarded.
Last Sunday Commerce Secretary Harold Lutnick told Maria Bartiromo the Commerce Department — who produces most government statistics — will start counting GDP breaking out government spending.

Last week Elon Musk posted that government spending shouldn't be included in GDP at all because "you could shift everyone who is building cars to working at the DMV and GDP would appear the same."
Musk is right. In fact, it could go up.
Because GDP counts output -- the market price of the car.
But for government there is no output with a market price. So, instead, government statisticians just add up the salaries and other costs.
That means you could close every car factory in America, give them high-paid government jobs looking out the window, and your GDP goes up.

How GDP is Calculated...
Partly for the above reason that GDP counts government spending instead of output.
But there’s a second reason: What government does produce is so bad.

• Wars in Afghanistan, of course.
• But consider public schools in Chicago. They spend $28,702 per student -- a princely sum. Yet just 22% of Chicago 11th graders are "proficient" at reading. Just 18% are proficient in math. So you could make a very good case that Chicago school GDP isn't producing anything...