ARTHUR BROOKS, the president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute,writes:
I'm often asked if I think America is trending tohttp://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/07/america-and-spain?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709ward becoming a European-style social democracy. My answer is: "No, because we already are a European-style social democracy." From the progressivity of our tax code, to the percentage of GDP devoted to government, to the extent of the regulatory burden on business, most of Europe's got nothing on us.
In particular, Mr Brooks thinks America looks a lot like Spain.
The political right can crow all it wants about how America is a "conservative country," unlike, say, Spain—a country governed by the Spanish Socialist Workers Party for most of the past 30 years. But at 36%, U.S. government spending relative to GDP is very close to Spain's. And our debt-to-GDP ratio is 103%; Spain's is 68%.