the proper size of government

Allow me to present a maxim you probably already know:

Liberals and conservatives disagree on the proper size of government.

Now, most people are probably inclined to agree with this, but it makes a very dangerous assumption -- specifically, that government can ever be big enough for liberals.

When you debate the role of government with a liberal, it can be a lot like ordering lunch with a very hungry friend after you've agreed to split the check.  He's going to order a lot more than you, and he's going to demand that you pay your "fair share."  This is probably an adequate way of rationalizing it if you need to explain why you shouldn't split checks with friends, or why it's important to you that your friend order from the lunch menu and skip the Bananas Foster.

But, strategically-speaking, this approach never addresses the real problem: your friend's eating disorder.

Try this exercise: Set the way-back machine to 1975, and imagine offering the liberals a truce.  Tell them you'll draw the line at $3 Trillion in 2009 dollars if they'll agree to draw the line there.  (And don't worry, even after adjusting for inflation that's still bigger than the libs' wildest dreams.)

My point is that we already have liberals' dream government.  Just a couple of days ago, the President boasted of trying to reduce government by $100,000,000, which turned out to be less than .003% (.0000286) of the budget.  I heard someone describe it as equivalent to cutting back a household budget by one cup of coffee per year.  It's not that the cut was so small, but just how large the government is that it can so dwarf a hundred million dollars.

Recessions are all the more noteworthy because they are uncommon.  The fact is that, over time, our economy grows consistently.  And despite liberal complaints about tax cuts, federal revenue has hovered pretty steadily at around 22-23% of the GDP, IIRC.  Since the government can be measured as a fixed percentage of a growing economy, there's already no limit to how big it will get.  And still, this is not enough for the libs.

Naturally, this leads to the next question: Then just how big is a big enough percentage for the libs?  What percentage of the economy should the government be to be "correctly" sized?

And if you ask that question, you're still not getting it: Such common sense does not apply here -- we're talking about a mental disorder.  There is no satisfactory percentage for libs.  Government does not get any fixed percentage of the economy; it cannot be limited.  They want it all.

What the liberals ultimately seek is an economic hierarchy where nobody is poor, where incentives are preserved just enough to make producers want to work harder, and where all growth is funneled into raising an arbitrary poverty line that nobody sinks below.  It's a perpetual motion machine; something of a big, growing snake swallowing itself by the tail just slowly enough that it never digests one of its own vital organs.  It's not a dream -- it's a fantasy.

Fortunately for us, the Constitution is a little more rational than liberals.  You can argue about the correct scope of government, but the Constitution is unambiguous about limiting the government to that scope, holding the government to its constitutional boundaries.

We need to step back.  I don't want to just hold off the libs' expansion of government, and settle for this ever-expanding fixed-percentage Republican expansion of government.  That's based on one of their premises, and we need to reject it instead of hiding behind it.  Government's not just too big as it is, it's already got too much momentum for our freedom to endure.

I want someone to put a rope around what government should be doing, and get a cost estimate for that.  And then I want a budget that pays for that government -- whatever it costs, not as some percentage of whatever we make.

And when the libs refuse to even draw that line, I don't want to hear their excuses, and I sure as hell don't want to hear any apologies from our side!  Liberals' problem is not that there isn't enough government, it's that there's no such thing as enough government for liberals.  That's a disease, and what I want -- what's needed -- is intervention.  Somebody's got to save the damned Golden Goose.

That's the John Galt Line.

Comments

[Jamie Drane]

Contempt of the “looters and moochers” should not be directed solely at the liberal section of American society. Governments have a tendency to trample on rights and to continually amass power no matter which current definition of liberal or conservative is in the majority. Favors are traded as currency, whether it’s a no-bid government contract for defense or a new regulation requiring carbon credits; each side of the spectrum sheers the sheep for the wool they produce and as long as we stand idly by or allow ourselves to be goaded into a fight of “liberal” vs. “conservative” we will always be sheep.

We live in a world of disinterested elite who would fall prey to any Danconian scheme and run to government for a bailout. They do not weigh the risks and review the business plans as a good solid investor would do; instead they run from bubble to bubble looking for the “next big thing.” Looking for big profits with little work; they do not care if a company produces anything as long as it produces a skyrocketing stock price. They subscribe to the economics of “feelings” rather than the economics of productivity. They believe that fortunes are made by persuading public perception rather than persuading the public to produce.

If our investment bankers and business news media subscribe to this kind of economics who is left to save the world? Who is John Galt?

[Wild Bill]

Wow - I love it - Let's create a "death panel" for government run by John Galt!

[J Green]

Jamie, who is left to save the world? We are - everybody is, why else are we here enlightening ourselves and developing more accurate opinions with up to date information? The reliance on a conservative John Galt figure is as bad as reliance on a liberal Government. It's never a question of who else is going to make things better, you've gotta be making your own life better and you'll find you might just rub off on the world around you.

Wild Bill here is a perfect example of who ISN'T going to save the world, in fact, they'll try to succeed at doing quite the opposite and years from now when their country is falling around their ears you'll hear the sullen murmur from their parched lips, ... "Who is Barack Obama? ..."

[IamIMMATURE]

If you are currently living in the United States of America and unable to adhere to the conditions (laws) implicit and explicit to the contract you freely entered solely by living in this nation please feel free to (1) leave, (2) terminate your own life, (3) create change in the current state of the nation, (4) create a nation where your ideals can be realized, or (5) live in accordance to the conditions of the contract you freely entered.

[John Harvard]

I didn't read your article...

[...and that's why I deleted your comment, Justin. And that's a shame, too, since it looks like you spent quite some time writing it -- especially for a person who never read the original post. Thank you for playing! -- John Galt]

[Jordan Groody]

One of the most overlooked themes of Atlas was the size of government advocated by John Galt. Galt's ideal civilization was modeled at Galt's Gulch. Within this model, the government was as small as possible. The citizens of the gulch provided their own leadership on a rotating basis. Volunteers provided civil services while civil order was kept by agreement between rational people and a system of peer enforced law. Essentially, no person was in a position of power over another.
From this I conclude that Galt's (and Rand's) ideal government size was essentially none at all. It's tough to conceptualize a society living without the constraints of even local centralized government. Unfortunately, such an arrangement depends solely on the clear and rational thinking of the members of that society, which makes it all but impossible in today's United States.
Interesting that the end result of pure capitalism would essentially be a hippie commune, and the end result of pure socialism would resemble a dictatorial hierarchy much like the corporations they so hate.

[markbrumbaugh]

I don't know about that Jordan. If all the folks in Galt's Gulch, were who they were it wouldn't exactly be a hippie commune. And if the looters and mooches were cut off, all you'd have left would be the clear and rational thinkers. Galt did forget perhaps that we would need a military to protect us from looters, thieves and moochers.
I also believe in the goodness of man, that true charity would prevail more so in a society where it was voluntary and not redistribution of stolen property.
If we could just go back to a representative republic that followed the constitution, I'd be happy.

[Steve in Minnesota]

May I copy and link to your above post, or would you just like me to link to it? I actually rented a town home from Ayn Rand's niece back in the 80's; a firm believer in the sentiment expressed here. Please let me know. My concern is that people won't click the link unless they read it first, but want it to be your choice. Thanks.

[John Galt]

You can certainly copy the post as long as you link back to here, Steve. Thanks for asking.

This particular post is actually kind of popular with StumbleUpon.

[Ben]

I dont think its lost on people that seriously read Atlas Shrugged what the size of the Government was Galts Gulch.

Those powers not specifically granted in the Constitution are not granted to the Federal Government.

It really OUGHT to be a very light weight government. We wouldnt even need police if everyone was allowed to procure, maintain, and employ the means to self-defense.

[Adam]

This made my night. There is absolutely no limit that will suffice the liberal thirst for more government.. Great article.

[Marc Franke]

I'm researching material for a book to cover "the right sized" government. And, I came across this blog. It would have more credibility as a serious work if it weren't laden with pejorative labels like "libs".

I'm looking for existing books that cover the topic of "what size government gives the greatest value for the least size".

[Logicreferee]

You seem to confuse liberals to communists, isn't laissez-faire liberalism in favor of less regulation, thus less government?, am I missing something here?