Big Government

Here is a bit from a post by Paul Krugman on his NY Times blog that looks at how "big government" is an illusion of the crazy right in American politics:

...why has government employment grown over time? Because, um, we have a growing population. Here’s government employment as a share of the population:


Yes, government got bigger under those socialists Dwight Eisenhower, LBJ, and Nixon. Since then, however, there has been no trend relative to population.

It is pretty clear that "big government" as sold by Ronald Reagan and his acolytes over the last 30 years is a "big lie".

I love the way Krugman takes a swipe at the crazy right by pointing out the staunch Republicans like Eisenhauer and Nixon resided over big increases in government size.

The truth is that government grew to fulfill the modern role of the state. If you want to live behind a horses arse pulling a plow, then you can have a tiny, tiny government. But if you live in a complex modern society with advanced educational needs, lots of social services, protections provided by agencies such as FDA, EPA, CDC, etc. then you need big government.

But reality doesn't daunt the ideology. As Krugman points out, their fantasies run wild despite the facts:

...thanks to one of my commenters for pointing to Mike Konczal’s dissection of claims that there has been a huge increase in the number of regulators; it turns out that essentially all of the increase reflects the growth of Homeland Security.

But ideologues don't want to be hampered by facts. They want to be free to spew their vile propaganda. They aren't interested in truth. They don't want to debate or discuss. They want to bludgeon and destroy.