How to Know if Government Is Too Big

[rangerrebew]

How to Know if Government Is Too Big


09/07/2019Gary Galles

At least since the time of Socrates, teachers have asked questions of students to elicit critical thought, evoke ideas and expose presuppositions. That has been part of my professor toolkit as well. But with the current political environment, particularly the Democratic nomination follies, reminding me of Will Rogers’s quip that “If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us … there wouldn’t be any inducement to go to heaven,” I have found that asking one of my favorite public finance (economics of government) questions has become even more important.

The question, posed after about of week of introductory material, is “How is a government that is too large be too small?" On the surface, it appears self-contradictory. But it can draw out an important conclusion about a problem infesting our politics.

https://mises.org/wire/how-know-if-government-too-big

[jafo2010]

Government is too big when they run a deficit.  PERIOD!

Anyone really believe we need to be spending the money we do not have at present?  I have worked with many governments, and my wife works for the federal government, and I think it safe to say we could cut staff by 50% and NEVER skip a beat.  In fact, productivity would dramatically increase and the staff remaining would complete far greater amounts of work.  So much done by government employees is make work.

And what really bothers me is the fact that contractors are hired to do the work of full time government employees, while they sit back and evaluate the work done by the contractors.  Insane.

Trump has failed miserably to make his mark on spending.  For this, historians will judge him poorly.  There are so many billions of dollars to be saved. 

So many people that swore they would reduce government if they became president in reality increased it, including Reagan. 

That is why a fully support an amendment that say we must balance the budget with one exception, during times of declared war by Congress.

What Congress is doing is criminal.  They all should be forced to resign from the House.