John Cogan explains how federal entitlements have always grown in his new book, The High Cost of Good Intentions. He told stories of veterans’ benefits, FDR’s early opposition to entitlements, the “theatrical sham” of the Social Security Trust Fund on EconTalk with Russ Roberts. You can see the growth of entitlements in the accompanying graphs showing the share of federal spending and overall spending (unadjusted for inflation) between 1940 and 2015.
