Comment & Debate
For decades and even centuries, a debate has raged over the appropriate size of government in a democratic society. In many ways, this is The debate, or the single most prominent debate pervading all other smaller debates shaping society and government policies. In the United States, for example, the recent 2009 and 2010 health care reform debate has become in large part a subsidiary-debate of the larger debate regarding big vs. small government, and whether government should have a bigger or smaller role in the health care industry. And this larger debate rears its head in other contemporary debates as well including, European social democracy, health insurance mandates, full-body scanners at airports, ban on trans fats, mandatory calorie counts on menus, education vouchers, charter schools, and many other debates. The arguments reaching across these various debates – on whether government is generally best kept large and robust or small and conservative – are presented below.
Government is designed to help individuals, particularly in enabling them to achieve their full potential. This can be seen in government funded schools, scholarships, job-training and re-training programs, equal opportunity programs, disability regulations, civil rights laws, gender equality legislation, veterans affairs offices, as well as social security and Medicare programs. These programs and laws all provide immense help to individuals, allowing them an opportunity to live fulfilling and productive lives that we all benefit from.
Many seem to regard government as some kind of monolithic institution detached from the citizens of a country, and even out to get them. This forgets the founding principles in any democracy, where government is by, of, and for the people and the individual. The government is, in other words, ultimately controlled and driven by the people, and is meant to reflect and uphold their interests. If a citizen feels that this is not the case, they should feel empowered by their vote and their ability to protest and organize in order to shape their government according to their interests.
“[Big government] is people getting together to do what they believe they must.” Democratic government should not be seen, in other words, as anything but individuals working together to achieve their common goals. Big government is not about some foreign power dictating over people.
“prejudices are still useful—and this newspaper’s prejudice is to look for ways to make the state smaller. That is partly for philosophical reasons: we prefer to give power to individuals, rather than to governments.”
“Small government enables and encourages self-reliance and voluntary cooperation. Creativity and productivity. Progress and prosperity.”
“Rather than asking who should take responsibility for an issue (whether, family, neighborhood, government, religious congregation, etc.), the public debate too often blithely assumes that the answer is government and instead focuses on how it should address the problem.”
By taxing citizens more, big government often hurts the citizens it’s trying to help through social programs. By creating dependencies on state hand-outs, big government often hurts the people it’s trying to help. Subsidies create similar dependencies, and the pattern continues. [See argument page for more].
Citizens can come together to engage in government at all levels. Going to a caucus as a citizen, for example, and interacting with other citizens, and voting for and shaping the agenda of ones political party is an incredibly powerful form of civic engagement. It binds communities mightily, allowing them to come together to express their individual and common vision for their future, and then enabling them to achieve these goals through collective action, with the authority of the state. No other civil association has the same power, so is not as capable of rallying a community together.
“Even as our economy worsened, many Americans consoled themselves with the belief that at least we were better off than people in other rich nations. No more. When you compare the U.S. with Canada, Western Europe and Japan, the news is sobering. Our child-poverty and infant-mortality rates are the highest, our life expectancy is the lowest, our budget deficit as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) is the highest, and our 15-year-olds rank among the lowest on tests of math and science.”
“Even as our economy worsened, many Americans consoled themselves with the belief that at least we were better off than people in other rich nations. No more. When you compare the U.S. with Canada, Western Europe and Japan, the news is sobering. Our child-poverty and infant-mortality rates are the highest, our life expectancy is the lowest, our budget deficit as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) is the highest, and our 15-year-olds rank among the lowest on tests of math and science.”
“As economies grow larger, societies more populous, scientific and social knowledge deeper, and interconnections more complex, government grows as well—at least in societies that succeed. And when government works as it should, it is also typically the leading agent of change. As economies progress, societies learn more, and expectations rise, government’s main purpose is to manage, foster, and adapt to this change. It is a profound task.”
“Local forms of association, especially the family and religious congregations, generate the thick, personal bonds that unite and motivate individuals toward the good for themselves and others. […] The common goods offered by the nation-state are less capable of engendering the thick, personal bonds that unite smaller institutions like families and congregations. Instead, the state is left more dependent on fear of punishment as a means of motivation.”
“As the federal government grows bigger and assumes more responsibility for fulfilling the moral obligations among citizens, it can further undermine the perceived significance and authority of smaller, local institutions. It can, in other words, weaken the institutions that foster social bonds that are strong enough to generate virtues like trust and responsibility.”
“To advocate limited government is to understand that not everything necessary for a community to be healthy is the responsibility of government.”
“[Small government] leaves us able and willing to support mutual aid and voluntary charity. It leaves us free to act from the love of our families, compassion for neighbors truly in need, and empathy for those unable to help themselves.”
“it is not clear at all that bureaucrats are always seeking to expand their agencies and their budgets. This budget-maximizing thesis was directly contradicted by a study conducted by Julie Dolan. […] She found that in most areas the public was willing to support increased spending much more than the agency administrators. And, in most cases, a majority of these administrators did not support increased budgets. This was due, she believed, to administrators having a more realistic and sophisticated knowledge of these issues and programs. Her conclusion: ‘In sum, the budget-minimizing tendencies of federal administrators reported here suggest that self-interest is not as powerful a motivator as previously believed, and they suggest we should revise our theories about self-interested bureaucrats inflating government budgets for their own gain.'”
“What has driven the historical expansion of government in the United States? […] government responsibilities increased because of public demand for social and economic regulation increased. During those eras [of the 1930s, 60s, and 70s], massed-based social movements – including the labor movement, the civil rights movement, and the environmental movement – insisted that the government address a wide variety of pressing social and economic problems.”
“the bigger and more powerful the state gets, the more it tends to grow.” The main reason advanced in support of this thesis is that more powerful governments and bureaucrats have more power and resources to grow even more, and impede on our lives with greater force and unchecked authority.”
Government bureaucrats, as they accumulate more power through the expansion of government, desire to accumulate more of this power, funding, and sway as a means of advancing their careers. Particularly, in the absence of profits and handsome salaries and bonuses, the most that government bureaucrats can hope for is an expansion of their power and their careers. Across a bureaucracy, this means that big government leads to even bigger government.
“Misplaced Allegiance Threatens Democracy. Citizens’ cultural allegiances to family, church, and local associations […] are some of ‘the most powerful resources of democracy.’ The diversification of authority and allegiance among social institutions helps to prevent any one institution from becoming too powerful.” In so far as government undermines these social institutions, it undermines a vital check on government in a democracy. This can lead to ever-expanding government power.
“Conservatives like to play on this popular prejudice by constantly equating government with bureaucracy. The comments of Charlton Heston are typical: ‘Of course, government is the problem. The armies of bureaucrats proliferating like gerbils, scurrying like lemmings in pursuit of the ever-expanding federal agenda testify to that amply.’ Once government is thought of as “bureaucracy,” the case for reducing it becomes obvious. Who could complain if Republicans want to get reduce these “armies of bureaucrats”? Everyone knows that we would all be better off with less bureaucracy and fewer bureaucrats in our lives. So when conservatives want to make shrinking government sound attractive, they say they are cutting ‘bureaucracy’ – not ‘programs.’ Most people value government programs – especially in the areas of education, health and the environment – and do not want to see them reduced; but everyone hates bureaucracy. Using the term ‘bureaucracy’ in this way is a rhetorical sleight-of-hand that obscures the real costs of cutting back on government programs.”
“There are certainly some straightforward ways to start closing the budget gap. […] spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should be ended, not prolonged, saving at least 1% of GDP.” This would enable robust government services, without breaking the bank.
“Small government is a mere fraction of the cost, authority, resources, power, and size of today’s Big Government. Small government is simple and cheap.”
“4. Big Government Programs are costly and wasteful. Have you ever heard about government cost under-runs? How many times have you read about government projects that come in at 5 or 10 or 20 times the price initially agreed to? Why aren’t Big Government Programs thrifty? Because they don’t have to be. It’s not their money. Every year, the officials running these Big Government programs go back to their local or state or federal legislators for bigger budgets and more tax dollars.”
“Small government is accountable and responsible. There’s no place to hide waste and corruption in a small government budget.”
“A conception of broad government responsibility to provide for those in need has exercised great influence since the days of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. This in turn has fed a notion of individual entitlement. […] expensive government social programs can lead to […] unhealthy moral consequences, including damaging dependence on government handouts.”
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