claim: forty percent of gross domestic product "is state, local, or federal money."
author: cokie roberts
evidence_1: charts and analysis of the us government spending, federal, state, and local,  including current spending, 20th century spending. source: office of managment  and budget, us census bureau.
evidence_2: oct 18, 2011 ... (state and local governments' spending — not counting what they get from  federal grants for things like medicaid and highways — is about a third of the ...  by the oecd's measure, u.s. government spending topped 42 percent of gdp in  2009 and 2010 — when the economy hit bottom — and has slipped to ...
evidence_3: federal government spending shows charts on national us spending by year as  a percentage of gdp. part of the federal revenue and spending.
evidence_4: also, this number excludes state and local debt. according to the oecd, general  government gross debt (federal, state, and local) in the united states in the fourth  quarter of 2015 was $22.5 trillion (125% of gdp); subtracting out $5.25 trillion for  intergovernmental federal debt to count only federal "debt held by the public" ...
evidence_5: dec 18, 2013 ... earlier, in the 1960s, federal investment represented more than 30 percent of  federal spending and averaged nearly 6 percent of gdp. ... the federal  government also invests through grants to state and local governments, which in  2012 represented 46 percent of its nondefense investment, or $146 billion.