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small government vs big government

MTAtech said:
You can't do that for things like Medicare or Social Security. It has to cover the entire country since people move and you need a stable revenue base.

Moreover, environmental, safety and worker regulations are difficult to achieve on the local level, since businesses will just more a few miles down the road to avoid them.
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Yes, that's true, to an extent. National defense is one example, but each state does provide a National Guard, and in the Army National Guard they provide actual combat units. But most things can be handled at the local or state level. BTW; Medicare and Social Security could be state programs, similar to Medicaid. If by "safety" you are talking OSHA, that is a state by state program. Some states do not have OSHA, they have their own safety programs. Same for worker "regulations". They also vary by state. For example, some states are open shop, some are closed shop. Minimum wage varies by state. As does unemployment insurance. Building codes vary by location. Certification and licensing (like teacher certification) are usually state or local (business licensing). Since WWll the federal government has appropriated more and more of what was once under state and local control. Sometimes for the better, but often just a power grab. The further the voter is from local government the less their vote counts. It's one of the reasons voter turnout is so low. People just don't feel their vote matters, and they're right.
 
Waddy said:
Yes, that's true, to an extent. National defense is one example, but each state does provide a National Guard, and in the Army National Guard they provide actual combat units. But most things can be handled at the local or state level. BTW; Medicare and Social Security could be state programs, similar to Medicaid. If by "safety" you are talking OSHA, that is a state by state program. Some states do not have OSHA, they have their own safety programs. Same for worker "regulations". They also vary by state. For example, some states are open shop, some are closed shop. Minimum wage varies by state. As does unemployment insurance. Building codes vary by location. Certification and licensing (like teacher certification) are usually state or local (business licensing). Since WWll the federal government has appropriated more and more of what was once under state and local control. Sometimes for the better, but often just a power grab. The further the voter is from local government the less their vote counts. It's one of the reasons voter turnout is so low. People just don't feel their vote matters, and they're right.
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They probably would be state programs if this was a confederacy like Europe, but we started out with a strong federal government over a weak one.
 
highroller said:
They probably would be state programs if this was a confederacy like Europe, but we started out with a strong federal government over a weak one.
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We didn't start out with a "strong federal government". That issue was decided by the Civil War. And the federal government didn't expand much until the New Deal, WWll, and the post war excelerated expansion of the federal government. There are many people who want that trend to continue until every issue is a national issue. That trend empowers politicians and renders voters virtually impotent. You can create a grass roots campaign for change rather easily at the local level, but it's very difficult to be heard at the national level.
 
Waddy said:
We didn't start out with a "strong federal government". That issue was decided by the Civil War. And the federal government didn't expand much until the New Deal, WWll, and the post war excelerated expansion of the federal government. There are many people who want that trend to continue until every issue is a national issue. That trend empowers politicians and renders voters virtually impotent. You can create a grass roots campaign for change rather easily at the local level, but it's very difficult to be heard at the national level.
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The national level should (and in my opinion does) deal with national issues. Whether it be slavery in the country, environmental regulations or voting issues. The players at the federal level will always be bigger than anywhere else.
 
bomberfox said:
the size of a government isnt really the big problem, it usually lies in the scope and activities that it is allowed to perform.
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And of course, my ideas of what government should do are different than another's. Some like big government with lots of prisons, dam building, subsidies to farmers, public assistance, etc. Others like small government when it comes to enforcing drug or labor laws. We all seem comfortable adhering to and contradicting our principles, depending on the issue and cui bono.
 
Nickyjo said:
And of course, my ideas of what government shiould do are different than another's
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I remember a saying “if you shrink the size of government without shrinking its power or scope, you will end up with one that will hurt you more, not less.
 
highroller said:
The national level should (and in my opinion does) deal with national issues. Whether it be slavery in the country, environmental regulations or voting issues. The players at the federal level will always be bigger than anywhere else.
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spoken like a true liberal.
 
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "SMALL GOVERNMENT"............. That's a fiction promoted by the agenda of Confederacy Ideology of Plutocrats wanting to dominate via Autocracy.
 
RealityNow said:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "SMALL GOVERNMENT"............. That's a fiction promoted by the agenda of Confederacy Ideology of Plutocrats wanting to dominate via Autocracy.
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I have come to the realization that small government can exist only with small businesses. Any business or organization that is larger and more powerful than the government becomes the default government.
 
highroller said:
I have come to the realization that small government can exist only with small businesses. Any business or organization that is larger and more powerful than the government becomes the default government.
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NO .... We have no business that is larger and more powerful than the government.

What we have is Politicians, who SELL OUT The Voice Of The People - To Lobbyist - for the sake to fill their coffers and provide them with inside information to shuffle money into things for their personal profit. They cause us to expand regulation to curb their corruption, by their promoting things that skirt existing regulation, which then requires more amendments to regulations to establish better controls and exact penalties for their abusive acts.
There is no such thing as Small Government, Government is what it is, and it grows to maintain the responsibility to be the Governance that it is.
 
RealityNow said:
There is no such thing as Small Government,
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Very true. Government is what it is. I vote based on other things than some imagined size where government is perfect.
 
Slippery slope arguments usually come from the right wing, it all started with Hayek and Rand. But we are not sliding into communism so that drum beat falls on deaf ears in my world. We are an oligarchy though, a paradise for the top 1% that is going to force us to change the rules or be ruled. This is all a result of neo-liberalism and it is going to be replaced one day. Either its populist authoritarianism (Trump) or increased democracy (Sanders and AOC). The nation cannot survive intact if Trumps vision prevails.
 
Republicans

Small Government? Really?

About like Fiscal conservative!
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Well if it's on twitter...

How do you know that isn't a video of a guy getting arrested for DUI or any number of things?
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Here's an interview of the guy:

www.rebelnews.com

Post-jail interview: Pastor Artur Pawlowski speaks on communism and freedom in Canada

The fearless source of news, opinion, and activism that you won't find anywhere else.
www.rebelnews.com www.rebelnews.com

And here's more evidence that Canada is anything but a free country:

www.aier.org

Canadian Doctors Are Being Censored

"This move is fundamentally opposed to the values of liberal democracy which have now been jeopardized on a global scale. With the lights of an enlightened and modern civilization going out across the world, it would be fair to ask, will they ever be turned back on in our lifetime?" ~ Ethan Yang
www.aier.org www.aier.org
 
aociswundumho said:
More evidence as to where Canada is heading:

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There has not been freedom of speech in Canada in a long time if ever. When I was a kid, I remember Canadian police breaking into a radio studio to pull someone off the air.
 
Please name the last Republican President to shrink the size of the federal government.

The right TALKS about being small government...but they never really are.
 
Big government a gun tax gun IDs identification cards copy paper will benefit everybody.

Will it punish criminals with guns? yes longer prison sentances.
Will it punish criminal activity with guns? yes longer prison sentances.
Will it punish the illegal transportation, manufacturing, distribution of guns? yes no new guns.
Will it actually make people safer? yes
Will it NOT punish law-abiding citizens? yes no open carry.
Will it NOT empower criminals? it will not empower them with gun tax they will not want their guns
direct deposits gun taxes. Gun Ids if they want to show it they have to say why they are holding it and if they shoot an innocent person they get life in prison, their gun and gun ID gets turned over to the state and ammo destroyed.
 
aociswundumho said:
So small government inevitably turns into big government, and big government turns into a totalitarian state.

Sounds about right, but it has nothing to do with the market or with capitalism.
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Not really. All things need checks and balances. Government, if unchecked and unregulated, becomes corrupt totalitarian dictatorship. Business, if unchecked and unregulated, becomes predatory and monopolistic. That does not mean we cannot have either. You can have both, but just need to put some regulations and leashes on both of them.

The founding fathers of this country created a system of checks and balances to try to keep that problem at bay with government. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but it does a reasonable job most of the time.

The big corporations and the complete free market were getting out of hand early on in the industrial Revolution and the gilded age- and that’s when government had to step in with some checks, balances, and regulations- like anti-trust laws, child labor laws, allowing unionization, etc…

I am not sure why people who are so mistrustful of the former, seem to think the latter does not need any similar oversight. None of this is magic. You just have to have good systems in place to pit everything against each other to keep them all in check. That way, the consumer/citizen just the best of both worlds, without having to suffer the excesses of either.
 
ChezC3 said:
the 9 scariest words in the english language -- I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.
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This, along with other toxic myths from the Reagan era, have gone far in turning the United States into a dangerously dysfunctional country. Of course we need a decent and competent government. What modern, sophisticated, developed economy in the world doesn’t?
 
ataraxia said:
The founding fathers of this country created a system of checks and balances to try to keep that problem at bay with government. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but it does a reasonable job most of the time.
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Actually, the experiment has been an enormous failure. Compare the size and scope of the federal government in 1800 to the monstrous state that it has become.

ataraxia said:
The big corporations and the complete free market were getting out of hand early on in the industrial Revolution and the gilded age- and that’s when government had to step in with some checks, balances, and regulations- like anti-trust laws, child labor laws, allowing unionization, etc…
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It is inconsistent to support both unions and antitrust laws. The purpose of antitrust laws are to promote competition, while the purpose of labor cartels is to eliminate competition among workers. You either support competition in the marketplace or you don't:

"Problems relating to the application of antitrust law to labor result from a basic incompatibility between two public policies: the first, embodied in the sherman act of 1890, prohibits efforts by anyone to monopolize or restrain competition in the product market; the second, embodied in the norris-laguardia act of 1932 and the wagner act of 1935, permits workers to combine into unions in order to bargain collectively with employers. collective bargaining necessarily assumes, however, the elimination of competition between employees in dealings with their employers; hence the unions' need to achieve a monopoly of the labor market. The ultimate goal of every union is to remove wages, hours, and working conditions as factors in the competition between employers."

Labor and the Antitrust Laws | Encyclopedia.com

LABOR AND THE ANTITRUST LAWSProblems relating to the application of antitrust law to labor result from a basic incompatibility between two public policies: the first, embodied in the sherman act of 1890, prohibits efforts by anyone to monopolize or restrain competition in the product market; the...
www.encyclopedia.com www.encyclopedia.com


Regarding child labor, the only thing that has worked to stop child labor is the wealth created by capitalism. If you pass a stupid law preventing kids from working in poor countries, they just end up dealing drugs or becoming prostitutes:

Here's the very liberal Paul Krugman:

"In 1993, child workers in Bangladesh were found to be producing clothing for Wal-Mart, and Senator Tom Harkin proposed legislation banning imports from countries employing underage workers. The direct result was that Bangladeshi textile factories stopped employing children. But did the children go back to school? Did they return to happy homes? Not according to Oxfam, which found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets—and that a significant number were forced into prostitution."

www.nytimes.com

Opinion | Reckonings; Hearts And Heads (Published 2001)

Paul Krugman Reckonings column says that while facts of globalization are not always 'pretty,' involving low wages and 'awful' working conditions in third world, that does not mean anti-globalization demonstrators are right; details their record of 'hurting the very people' they wish to help...
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

ataraxia said:
I am not sure why people who are so mistrustful of the former, seem to think the latter does not need any similar oversight. None of this is magic. You just have to have good systems in place to pit everything against each other to keep them all in check. That way, the consumer/citizen just the best of both worlds, without having to suffer the excesses of either.
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Really? You really don't know why people are so mistrustful of the state?

woodstock.jpg
 
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