Why does an increase increase in government spending mean thatgovernment has “grown”? This only illustrates the sloppiness of “big”/“small” government rhetoric. “Bigger” government is supposed to mean less freedom and decreasing government spending means “shrinking” government, so lower spending is used as one indicator of more freedom.
I don’t get it.
That’s a very good point hadn’t thought of that.
Wouldn’t that depend on what it is being spent on?
Big government is encroachment beyond the delegated powers.
That ^^
At best spending is just a shadow of government getting bigger. In most cases it’s just a result of government growth.
And government can grow without any new spending.
I don’t think so. This would imply that what constitutes “big government”, at least in the context of spending, is only dependent upon what a polity’s constitution says.
Imagine we have a polity whose government is spending money on universal healthcare AND whose constitution forbids spending on healthcare. This spending would be “big government” since it’s not a delegated power. Would this spending then be not-“big government” if that same constitution authorized spending on healthcare? I don’t think that the qualifications for the “big government” lend themselves to being dependent on what a constitution says.
I disagree.
Could you explain? I think that has dangerous implications for your own stances.
I already did. Delegated powers.
How so?
More spending means more govt. employees. More employees means more bureaucracy. More bureaucracy means it goes slower and slower and most likely with less competence. Big government.
Example-1: Federal Government increases military spending. Military spending is part of the federal government’s constitutional charter. That’s not necessarily big government.
Example-2: Federal Government forms a new department to oversee State taxation practices. States are free to tax as they wish, and it’s not federal purview to monitor it. Yes, more bureaucracy, more spending, and that’s an example of big government.
Department of Education is, in and of itself, big government. Bureaucracy, staff, regulations, additional taxation layer. Federal government taking over the student loan business. Obamacare.
In another thread we were discussing water rights across the nation. If we were to re-work all the ancient water-rights laws, I listed all sorts of agencies, departments, districts, offices, bureaus, etc., that would likely need to be involved. (I went to a government web site that listed all US agencies at the federal level to pick out names of water-related entities.) And that’s only at the federal level. Each state has its own labyrinth of agencies as well. And THAT is big government.
I certainly oversimplified for expediency. More departments and agencies, more regulations of which the list is endless.
Increased military spending is bigger govt., there ain’t no way around it. The debate is how much is too much. Most everybody agrees that a military is an absolute necessity for us.
