April 16, 2010 3:55PM 

# This Week in Government Failure 

By [Tad DeHaven](https://www.cato.org/people/tad-dehaven) 

---

<a class="js-popover-trigger cursor-pointer popover-trigger" data-bs-placement="bottom" data-bs-trigger="click" id="popover-trigger"> 

SHARE 

</a> 

Over at [Downsizing Government](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/), we focused on the following issues this week:

- In the short-lived [Depression of 1920–21](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/cutting-spending-recession), federal spending was dramatically reduced and prosperity followed.
- The Congressional Budget Office’s long-term budget projections show that unless Washington changes course, the [interest on the debt alone](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/the-budgets-unsustainable-path) will consume 30 percent of the economy by 2080.
- Federal spending on K‑12 education has been a failure. It’s well past time to abolish the [Department of Education](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-education-failure).
- There’s nothing happy about [Tax Day](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/unhappy-tax-day).
- If the [exploding debt](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/the-debt-explosion) is to be brought under control, policymakers are going to have to rein in entitlement spending.

##### Related Tags 

[Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) 

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).