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Thursday, August 02, 2007
Size Doesn't Matter
EJ Dionne has a good column about shifts in the big government/small government debate.
The "big" vs. "small" government argument rages in state politics around the country, but the fights closer to the ground tend to be less ideological. Unlike the federal government, most states face strict limits on their ability to run deficits, so the relationship between the taxes that citizens must pay and the government programs that voters want is much more explicit.
"For us, it's either slash education, higher education, health care for seniors or for the disabled, or let people out of prison," said Granholm, who is in the midst of a battle with Republicans who control the state Senate over whether to raise taxes -- and which taxes to raise -- to cover a deficit.
I look forward to the day when people consider government just a means to an end and forget about this debate over what size of government is ideal, or whatever. There is no ideal size of government. There are only ideal purposes of government. Government should only be so big as to achieve the purposes given to it.
Same goes for the debate over the "the market." There is no ideal size of the market, because the market is just another means to an end. All the people who love the market, or love government, puzzle me, though I can only think of people who love the market. Don't really know anyone who loves government- seems like that went out of style a long time ago.
A more constructive debate could be had over what government and the market are capable of. Surely that's being had already; it'd just be great if we could raise the profile of the debate over public and private capacity, because there's certainly a lot of work that needs to be done on restoring faith in the effectiveness of government.
Ok, I'm done.
Posted by Matt Lewis
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