What limits social spending?

The forces that are most likely to set the ultimate limits on social spending as a share of GDP are not those usually imagined. The deadweight costs of such spending, and the taxes behind them, fail to show the predicted upward spiral. The experience of 1960-1981 shows a major role for shifts in relative age-group sizes, but with an approaching sunset to the effect of aging on social-spending patterns. In addition, the further are the middle pre-fisc income ranks from the poor, the lower the political tendency to spend on any major type of social program. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.