Broadly speaking, and regardless of whether or not a country owns the money printing press, government spending limits are a function of how much the market is willing to bear. read more
The size of government spending is a political decision. There are no economic limits to government spending. In democracy, people decide what share of resources are used by the government sector. There are economic limits on government deficit (=government spending minus tax proceeds), but this is a separate question. read more
The chart below shows actual spending since 1990 and a budget limit of population growth plus inflation, with those variables averaged over the prior five years. In the 1990s, Congress generally kept spending under the limit. read more