The False Promise of Big Government, page 9
Conclusion
CHANGING THE DEBATE
The debate over the size and scope of the federal government has not let up since the time of the New Deal. But, for the most part, that debate has been one-sided.
Champions of defined government have done little to stop the relentless growth of government, even when they have held political power. They seemed to achieve a major victory in 1996, when a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, declared, “The era of big government is over.”
But that seems like ancient history now.
The government expanders have convinced a significant portion of the population that big government is the answer to every imaginable problem. As time goes on, the federal government seizes more power and absorbs more and more taxpayer dollars.
There are many reasons for the growth of government. But advocates of defined government often hurt their own cause. Whereas big-government advocates speak as if they have the best intentions of the common person at heart, proponents of defined government typically talk abstractly about rates of economic growth, about wasteful and inefficient programs, about constitutional provisions on limited government. Such arguments have legitimate foundations but miss the point. As American Enterprise Institute president Arthur C. Brooks put it, those who press the case purely in terms of statistics or efficiencies end up sounding like “tax accountants to billionaires.”
But the real problem is that such arguments fail to counter the fundamental claim of big-government advocates: that big government provides vital support to the average American, who cannot get ahead in a society controlled by the wealthy and politically powerful.
The foundational argument underlying big government is a myth. Big government does not help the poor, the working class, and the middle class, even though those groups provide the justification for big government. In fact, big government often hurts the supposed beneficiaries of government largesse. Those who gain the most from big government are the elite and the powerful.
The myth of big government has been repeated so often that it has come to be taken as true. But any real concern for our fellow citizens requires that this myth be exposed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrick M. Garry, JD, PhD, is professor of law at the University of South Dakota. He is the award-winning author of several books, including Conservatism Redefined. Garry writes frequently for both popular and scholarly publications and has delivered hundreds of lectures across the country.
Copyright © 2017 by Patrick M. Garry
Originally published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute
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Patrick M. Garry, The False Promise of Big Government
