The cloture vote is the method the United States Senate developed in 1917 to bring unlimited debate to an end. The Senate initially set the threshold to bring debate to an end at 2/3, which would be 67 senators in today’s Senate. In 1975 they lowered that threshold to 3/5, or 60 votes, which is our current level. Before this first cloture vote, the federal government was 2 percent of the economy - 2 cents of every dollar flowed through the federal government. At that time state and local governments represented 5 percent of our total economy so the total cost of government was 7 percent. Today the federal government is 24 percent the size of our economy - 24 cents of every dollar flows through the federal government. Add state and local government (about 16 percent) and we’re up to 40 percent which is the lower level of European-style socialism.

Video courtesy of Chippewa Valley Community Television.

The data used in the preparation of this chart can be viewed here.