We all want big government

No, no we don't my "centrist" "socialist" friend. :ssst:

Well one baseline for determining what "big government" is is how much of GDP is made up of government spending. here's a chart depicting the amount of government spending on every level (federal, state, and local) from the turn of the 20th century to the present. What you can see is a couple of big blips at major wars (for obvious reasons) and a gradual rise since the Great Depression. However, what you also see since the 80s is the stabilization and decrease of spending up until the current crisis in which bailouts and stimulus plans have shot that number up to its highest peacetime level ever in American history and second highest level ever including wars. That's what Keynesianism gets you I suppose.

But in any case what we can see here is up until the crisis there was a reversal of the trend of bigger and bigger government. And this isn't only true in the US, but also in most of Europe where entitlement programs have been scaled back and formerly nationalized industries have been privatized. Indeed the financial crisis may not even really reverse this trend as the European debt crisis causes austerity measures and frankly the right has been helped by the crisis at least as much as the left has. So the election of Obama excepted, we can say the American people (and indeed the people of the Western World in general) have actually been voting for smaller government for years now and have been gradually getting it.

Of course this doesn't measure economic regulations or social freedoms though for the latter I think the evidence has been pretty consistently pro-small government (think about how many more social freedoms are available in the modern world from easy divorce, to gays beginning to get marriage rights, to the ending of racial segregation.

One thing to keep in mind is that the ship of state does not turn on a dime. Social Security and Welfare took decades of getting people used to the idea of more government intervention (for Social Security the ground work was laid by the Progressive movement starting in the late 1890s and for Welfare is was about three decades after FDR had pioneered the concept of a government safety net). It will probably take people a long time to get used to the idea of the government not intervening in their lives.

justabubba said:

you have it right
we want government which will provide all the things that we believe government should offer and none of the other things

for me, the focus should be getting our nation's financial house in order
we own the world's foremost currency
that is a huge advantage few appreciate
we print $100 bills for the direct cost of a few pennies, the rest is fabricated wealth
and we can get away with that advantage until our currency is no longer the world's most valued tender
which is the reason we must now do those things which maintain that massive economic advantage

a few things i think need to be cut are the military budget
other than in theatres where there are DECLARED wars, we should have NO military installations
germany, south korea, okinawa, japan, and a host of other military bases in foreign lands should be closed, and our troops returned to the mainland
just as we need to scale back the size of our military we similarly need to substantially reduce the size of our civil service ... and we need to take a fresh look at the way government workers are compensated
as a retired fed and active union official, i see massive amounts of waste. fortunately, THE one person i would want to evaluate the government spending programs is the fellow who is charged with that very assignment - Erskine Bowles (with alan simpson). if Bowles is heeded, the right cuts will be made without any loss of necessary services to the public

in my view, the single largest problem our country now faces is that we have the best government money can buy
we must eliminate legal bribes in the form of campaign contributions. until that change is made we will not have a government of the people, by the people and FOR the people

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I think you are correct in just everything mentioned above. Do you think any of this will happen? if not why are we incapable of moving on these things?

I like a big government to keep big business and other factors in check, but too big a government, and you get an unorganized, useless bureaucracy. There will be subcommittees of subcommitties of committies which all are useless.

No we don't.

Don't presume to speak for all of us.

How many people favor the State has no bearing on whether or not the State is necessary. Surveys say most people believe in God, too, even though there's just as much reason to believe in the Easter Bunny. Democracy is just another lame cover story for parasitic ruling classes.

I would rank the populous as follows:

1) Apathetic and/or doesn't vote.
2) People who vote along the lines of wanting more government.
3) Libertarians.

Most of the populous just doesn't give a crap, which is why government continues to expand regardless of what party is in power. Most people are not politically conscious; most people think that government knows what is good for them and hands over their political process to government on a leap of faith.

The left doesn't want government interference into civil rights or a reduction of social programs; the right wants a reduction in social programs and a restriction of social rights. They are essentially statists because of this. It would take the right being more live and let live and the left being more self-sufficient for government power and spending to shrink, but neither side is willing to do that.

Libertarians have some great ideas but they haven't been able to solve the problem of apathy within the larger voting demographic. The majority either vote but don't follow up on specific issues with their representatives, or they don't vote at all. The whole "power to the people" spiel is not working because the people do not care.

Orion said:

1) Apathetic and/or doesn't vote.
2) People who vote along the lines of wanting more government.
3) Libertarians.

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Are you saying those are the only three options?

I ask because I am none of those three.

Tucker Case said:

Are you saying those are the only three options?

I ask because I am none of those three.

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Most people fall under those categories, yeah.

CaptainCourtesy said:

Not qualitative or quantitative. Good one, though.

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Your definition of Progressivism.

MrVicchio said:

Your definition of Progressivism.

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Then you STILL don't have my definition, right.