Why a smaller government is a better government
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YRABNNRM
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« on: November 28, 2005, 04:45:03 PM »

"Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem”. This was a quote made by the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Wilson Reagan in his first inaugural address. In recent years we have seen the size of the federal government and bureaucracy increase in such a drastic rate that our founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry may not even recognize the nation they helped to build. Founding fathers such as these built this country on the idea of freedom, a freedom to find a job and earn as much money as you can, a freedom to live your life the way you want and a dedication to civil liberties. These days’ politicians on both sides of the aisle seem to forget the importance of a free market economy and a society with personal liberties. Instead they force the hand of the government into our lives everyday whether you know it or not. The federal government is quickly becoming too big for its own good.

The national debt of the United States is way over eight trillion dollars and is increasing 3.48 billion dollars per day. This is proof that the federal government has a role in programs that it should not be involved in. An example of this is the original version of the 2006 fiscal year transportation appropriations bill in Congress. In this bill 452 million dollars was set aside for two bridges in Alaska that would link a small island with fifty people on it to mainland Alaska. Why should out-of state taxpayers have to pay for something that doesn’t even affect them? Why should we pay for something that really should be the priority of the state? Thankfully this provision of the bill was dropped but there are still many more like this that still remain in Congressional legislation and will probably not be dealt with. Other examples like this could be 950 thousand dollars for a parking lot in Omaha, Nebraska, 500 thousand dollars for a sculpture park in Seattle, Washington, 25 million dollars for a fish hatchery in Montana. We shouldn’t be spending this money on pet projects such as these when we have troops in need of better supplies overseas and a hollowed out shell of a city in our own southern region of the country. We also have a huge problem when our President has the power to veto and has not used it for these superfluous projects. In fact the current President has not vetoed one single bill in the nearly five years he has served in the office. During the 2000 election then Governor George W. Bush campaigned as a fiscal conservative. Fiscal conservatives stand for the very idea of limited government however as his actions above show he has been anything but that. Under his watch the national debt has ballooned, this is surely not the actions of a fiscal conservative.

For decades the Republican Party has praised itself on being the party of small government. These days you would never know it. With the president’s non-existent veto as mentioned before this party has committed countless other violations, one of these being the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. This proposal was simply ridiculous and was luckily rejected. Why should we be inserting a matter of personal preference into the constitution? It’s quite alright if you do not agree with the homosexual culture, however it doesn’t effect my life or your life if two of them were to marry. The government really shouldn’t have any role in marriage at all, marriage should be left up to the religions. If you want to unite under the government you should be issued a civil union whether you are gay or straight. If you want to unite under the church than you should be issued a marriage license, however the church itself has the right to turn away a gay couple to marry in their church, not the federal government. The Republicans also have turned their back on the issue of smaller government with their support of criminal justice programs such as capital punishment. Who is the state to take a life, no matter how awful the person may be?  When you give the government the power to kill you give them the ultimate power. It’s ironic that the Republican party claims to be the party of life when they support measures such as these. The party also feels that it is the governments role to tell a woman what she should do with her unborn child, when it should ultimately be a personal decision. With policies such as these the federal government would be sticking it’s head into peoples homes, where personal decisions are made.

While the Republican Party may wish to enact policies that intervene in personal decisions the Democrats are just as bad. The difference is that while the Republicans want to regulate what goes on in your household the Democrats want to regulate your pocketbook. The Democratic Party has always been supportive of what I like to call “Robin Hood Economics”. “Robin Hood Economics” is where you tax the rich more to pay for the poor. This idea goes against the very natures of freedom and capitalism. I’ll give you an example: lets say that you invent some product, lets say a new type of computer. You have worked and dedicated your whole life to build this new type of computer. You market this computer and build a whole company on it. You become a millionaire because of the hard work you dedicated your life to. Now the government comes in and says “We’re going to make you pay more money to us while this whole group over here pays less”. This is forced charity. Sure it would be great if all rich helped out the less fortunate but it should in no way be mandatory. That is against the belief of capitalism and the ideas of our founding fathers.
   
   A large problem in government today is the increasing amount of government programs and agencies. This is where we get that national debt from. Most of these programs and agencies do nothing but eat your tax dollars up and you never get anything out of it. There are 457 federal agencies today. Many of these agencies do the same thing, if they even do anything at all. Under these 457 agencies there are even more agencies! Take for example the NIH or National Institutes of Health. Under this government agency there is 47 more agencies! Now if you take the 457 federal agencies and lets assume that each agency has 47 sub agencies like the NIH and you multiply those together you get 21, 479 agencies. On top of that there is even more agencies at the state level! Is this level of bureaucracy really needed? Should we really have to pay for these do-nothing agencies upon do-nothing agencies? Like the bridges, parking lots and sculpture parks mentioned before these agencies are eating away at the money in your pocket book. For every dollar that you earn the government takes 47 cents, that’s basically half a dollar. It’s estimated that the government currently takes 4.5 trillion dollars from Americans every year. When you pay for a good such as food you are also paying for the regulations that some of these agencies impose, causing the price to raise. In a smaller government, these agencies would be drastically narrowed down and your taxes would be significantly lower.
   
   So in the end what are the reasons for a smaller government?  A smaller government puts more money in your pocket and lets you keep the money you earn, a smaller government lets you keep your privacy and keeps the government out of your life, a smaller government makes those in government work harder and a smaller government is in line with the very ideas of our founding fathers. The sole purpose of government should be to protect my inalienable freedoms listed in the Bill of Rights, not put limits on them like big government does. A smaller government leads to a more efficient government. A smaller government leads to a more free nation. We, as a nation, should be more personally responsible and accountable and with a gigantic government that is impossible. Big government is robbing you blind. I want the government out of my bedroom, out of my wallet and out of my life. One thing we must remember is that a government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
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YRABNNRM
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« Reply #1 on: November 29, 2005, 08:10:16 PM »

I need to present this in class so if anyone has any comments or things that I should fix let me know.
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The Duke
JohnD.Ford
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« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2005, 12:27:04 AM »

Nitpicky: Second to last paragraph should read that prices rise, not raise.
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YRABNNRM
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« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2005, 05:37:15 PM »

Nitpicky: Second to last paragraph should read that prices rise, not raise.

Oh alright thanks. I keep meaning to read your term paper but always get interupted. It looks very interesting.

Any other feedback is welcome. Negative or positive.
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No One
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« Reply #4 on: December 08, 2005, 10:31:25 PM »

here is my point of view on the issue and it goes against your term paper but if you work it in and find an answer to it, u can have an awesome paper.
Smaller government is not the solution. A Government can be small but inefficient. An efficient government who provides a strong dollar, strong national defense and safety for all its people is the best government no matter how small or large it is.
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opebo
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« Reply #5 on: December 09, 2005, 11:56:51 AM »

What garbage.  The reason 'Why a 'smaller' government is a better government' is that it benefits the owning class.
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TeePee4Prez
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« Reply #6 on: December 09, 2005, 03:59:38 PM »

What garbage.  The reason 'Why a 'smaller' government is a better government' is that it benefits the owning class.

But just big enough for a strong military and a religious element to pry into people's bedrooms.  Ahh, the pinnacles of modern Feudalism. 
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dazzleman
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« Reply #7 on: December 09, 2005, 10:02:43 PM »

That's a pretty well-written essay, Andrew.

I generally agree that all other things being equal, a smaller government is a better government.  Still, it's important not to take a good thing too far, and start believing too much of your own propaganda.

The fact is that truly small government is gone, and will not return.  Society is too complex to have the type of government we had back in the 1800s.  The American people would never permit it, and neither party would advocate it.

There are many dangers to big government.  I believe that government is fundamentally incompetent and is very destructive when not tightly controlled.  As I think Gerald Ford once said, the government that is powerful enough to give us everything we want is powerful enough to take away everything we have.  Still, there are certain things that must be done that aren't economically rewarding, and people rely on government to do these things, principally.

While you are on the right track in my opinion, you need to be careful about having a doctrinaire belief in small government because it could produce unexpected effects that you don't want, like rampant crime possibly. 

Still, my big problem with some advocates of big government is that they produce all the negative effects of big government, with none of the positives.  Think of the political philosophy that produces high taxes and spends the money on destructive and wasteful social programs that have exacerbated the problems they were meant to address, while neglecting the primary government functions of maintaining domestic tranquility and a strong national defense.

One thing I would say to you -- in order to ensure that people have all the freedom they deserve, it is sometimes necessary to restrain the freedom of certain people in certain areas.  I don't think you general philosophy necessarily recognizes or addresses that.  You can't be all things to all people.
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A18
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« Reply #8 on: December 09, 2005, 11:50:06 PM »

The fact is that truly small government is gone, and will not return.  Society is too complex to have the type of government we had back in the 1800s.

Uh, 'complexity' is not a reason for anything. Come up with a better line.

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Until small government means dismantling the police, I'll have to stand by my belief that you're just paranoid.

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By freedom, it is of course meant lack of coercion, not some kind of positivist nonsense.
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dazzleman
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« Reply #9 on: December 10, 2005, 08:21:06 AM »

Philip, you have a point about dismantling the police.  It is more often advocates of big government (i.e., liberals) who seek to effectively dismantle the police.

Complexity is a reason for certain things, and I don't think we can have the same type of government today that we had when we were an isolated, agrarian nation.  Whether the government we actually have is the right kind is a different question.
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DanielX
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« Reply #10 on: December 10, 2005, 09:08:04 AM »

What garbage.  The reason 'Why a 'smaller' government is a better government' is that it benefits the owning class.

But just big enough for a strong military and a religious element to pry into people's bedrooms.  Ahh, the pinnacles of modern Feudalism. 

I don't favor the latter, either.

A government should only be large enough to protect its citizens from internal and external threats (ie crime, terrorism, enemy nations), and to discourage other countries from being threats.
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opebo
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« Reply #11 on: December 11, 2005, 04:10:06 PM »

What garbage.  The reason 'Why a 'smaller' government is a better government' is that it benefits the owning class.

But just big enough for a strong military and a religious element to pry into people's bedrooms.  Ahh, the pinnacles of modern Feudalism. 

I don't favor the latter, either.

A government should only be large enough to protect its citizens from internal and external threats (ie crime, terrorism, enemy nations), and to discourage other countries from being threats.

In other words to preserve the class structure and everyone's place in it.
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dazzleman
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« Reply #12 on: December 11, 2005, 07:27:36 PM »

What garbage.  The reason 'Why a 'smaller' government is a better government' is that it benefits the owning class.

But just big enough for a strong military and a religious element to pry into people's bedrooms.  Ahh, the pinnacles of modern Feudalism. 

I don't favor the latter, either.

A government should only be large enough to protect its citizens from internal and external threats (ie crime, terrorism, enemy nations), and to discourage other countries from being threats.

In other words to preserve the class structure and everyone's place in it.

That's something you should strongly favor, opebo, if you are who you say you are.
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YRABNNRM
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« Reply #13 on: December 11, 2005, 09:42:26 PM »

What garbage.  The reason 'Why a 'smaller' government is a better government' is that it benefits the owning class.

But just big enough for a strong military and a religious element to pry into people's bedrooms.  Ahh, the pinnacles of modern Feudalism. 

I'm glad you paid attention to what I said in my paper!


Roll Eyes
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YRABNNRM
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« Reply #14 on: December 11, 2005, 09:47:12 PM »

That's a pretty well-written essay, Andrew.

I generally agree that all other things being equal, a smaller government is a better government.  Still, it's important not to take a good thing too far, and start believing too much of your own propaganda.

The fact is that truly small government is gone, and will not return.  Society is too complex to have the type of government we had back in the 1800s.  The American people would never permit it, and neither party would advocate it.

There are many dangers to big government.  I believe that government is fundamentally incompetent and is very destructive when not tightly controlled.  As I think Gerald Ford once said, the government that is powerful enough to give us everything we want is powerful enough to take away everything we have.  Still, there are certain things that must be done that aren't economically rewarding, and people rely on government to do these things, principally.

While you are on the right track in my opinion, you need to be careful about having a doctrinaire belief in small government because it could produce unexpected effects that you don't want, like rampant crime possibly. 

Still, my big problem with some advocates of big government is that they produce all the negative effects of big government, with none of the positives.  Think of the political philosophy that produces high taxes and spends the money on destructive and wasteful social programs that have exacerbated the problems they were meant to address, while neglecting the primary government functions of maintaining domestic tranquility and a strong national defense.

One thing I would say to you -- in order to ensure that people have all the freedom they deserve, it is sometimes necessary to restrain the freedom of certain people in certain areas.  I don't think you general philosophy necessarily recognizes or addresses that.  You can't be all things to all people.

Thank you for your constructive response dazzleman, I take to heart what you have to say.
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The Duke
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« Reply #15 on: December 12, 2005, 07:50:46 PM »

The Gerry Ford quote dazzleman provided was actually from Goldwater, iirc.
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YRABNNRM
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« Reply #16 on: December 12, 2005, 09:34:23 PM »

The Gerry Ford quote dazzleman provided was actually from Goldwater, iirc.

I included the quote at the end of my speech. When I did research I found that it was attributed  to many people. Who knows...
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dazzleman
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« Reply #17 on: December 12, 2005, 09:39:16 PM »

The Gerry Ford quote dazzleman provided was actually from Goldwater, iirc.

You could be right.  I remember reading it in something that Gerald Ford wrote.  Regardless, it is 100% true.
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memphis
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« Reply #18 on: December 19, 2005, 05:26:19 PM »

Smaller government is very vague. I think it will help if you acknowledge the things that you concede are legitimate functions of government (this will avoid a debate of whether or not you support police) as well as things you believe are not a legitimate function of government. You may also want to distinguish between federal, state, and local governments. Are they all served best by the same philosophy?
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nlm
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« Reply #19 on: February 28, 2006, 01:32:51 PM »

An interesting start Andrew. For a short paper it does a fairly good job, but, as a  short paper it ignores some of the finer points that are very important; like government subsidies and tax breaks for certain companies but not others. That is a defeat for capitalism as well and represents a "robinhood" type effect used by both the Dems and the GOP (and the GOP has been practicing this tactic quite a bit as of late). Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe used to preach that "less is more", but he also was quite clear that "god is in the details" - even though he was but an architect, he was right about both, and both can be applied to government quite well.
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MaC
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« Reply #20 on: March 06, 2006, 12:21:33 PM »

Good paper.  Simple language, but good for getting your point across-especially that if you're in high school you need not worry about that.  Sounds a bit like a paper that I would've written back then.

And opie doesn't really understand the main concepts of a smaller government so he just throws out the words 'owning class' as a red herring to make it sounds like he knows something. (you would think that denouncing a gay marriage amendment might appeal to him, but sadly....)
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Bono
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« Reply #21 on: March 06, 2006, 01:20:53 PM »

Haven't you been reading teh National Review lately?
Public debt is now a good thing(at least while Bush is at power).
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Person Man
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« Reply #22 on: April 16, 2008, 10:07:11 PM »

It's a reasonable peice. The only problem with small government is that it doesn't address the people's grievances. Then again, if problems can be addressed without government, more power to that. I don't care about the "size of government", I care about results. ...and by "results", I mean that I actually feel that the country is working and that I have a community that I am proud to be in as well as a future where I can rely on my agency.
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YRABNNRM
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« Reply #23 on: June 23, 2009, 11:23:56 AM »

Small government is so 2005.
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Storebought
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« Reply #24 on: June 25, 2009, 05:31:59 PM »

What garbage.  The reason 'Why a 'smaller' government is a better government' is that it benefits the owning class.

This is obvious: smaller government is better than large because there are fewer people to hang.
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