“ …the conservative preference for small government is weaker than it might seem. The size of government increased under both George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Tax rates decreased, but at the cost of higher deficits, not lower spending. In fact, spending jumped as well, in no small part due to increases in military spending. And the military is part of government. The only recent president under whom government shrank was Clinton, and he was no small-government conservative. He thought government did some things well and other things poorly, and he tried to emphasize the former and cut the latter, and that made him, I’d guess, like most Americans.
Ezra Klein - Government size as philosophy
Ezra Klein - Government size as philosophy
