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I have been listening to a podcast by a voluntarist(link) and he(link) made the claim that no government in the history of the world has been permanently reduced in size through the legislative process. I'm not sure how to objectively determine permanence, so I set a standard of 30 years and did some investigating myself. As far as I can tell this claim is valid and it makes sense that it would be since the advocates of small government have been losing in this country pretty much since the ink dried on the constitution.

Is smaller government through voting for politicians truly unprecedented?

Just assuming, I'd say government has grown as the complexity of the world grows. With a larger population comes a wider range of individual interests and concerns.

As we see now some of these independent opinions conflict. That's when government starts defining what's OK and what's not.

Just my assumptions.

"The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign affairs. Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our General Government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants." (Thomas Jefferson - March 1800)

Nothing new...

Heh, the Largest goverment program in the world, dollar for dollar is
A)China Military
B)UK's Healthcare program
C)The USA's Social Security

Answer is....C. Social Security

The only smaller governments that have occurred in history is when a larger one was overthrown.

I was gonna say that there is only one way to get a smaller government and we can't talk about that here.

People trying to reduce the size of government by working in the system are just wasting their time?

bdickens wrote:I was gonna say that there is only one way to get a smaller government and we can't talk about that here.

Even that doesn't always work. Last time they tried that here, we got LBJ and The government got a huge growth spurt from that fiasco.

Zee wrote:Just assuming, I'd say government has grown as the complexity of the world grows. With a larger population comes a wider range of individual interests and concerns.

As we see now some of these independent opinions conflict. That's when government starts defining what's OK and what's not.

Just my assumptions.

Yes, those are your assumptions but they are not correct.

The "complexity of the world" has not grown in any way that impacts government. What has grown that has caused government to grow in the USA is the expectation that some goods, services, special rights, etc. are due to a growing class of people who are allowed to vote, and therefore the government officials, hungry for that vote, oblige to offer these perks to the begging voter class.

This quote sums it up:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: "from bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage." --Alexander Frazier Tytler, published in 1776.

There is no sensible argument to be made that a greater number of people in the USA necessitates each person pay a greater percentage of their income to support the government activity. In fact, the converse should certainly be true, given the economy of scale. However, we are way, way beyond the edge of the curve on the economy of scale. In Oatmeal, TX, it can be argued that adding that one more police officer or repairing the fire department's leaky roof may create an additional per-capita tax burden, since maybe one police officer can support population of x and a population of x+1 requires double the expenditure on police officers, until which time as the population has grown to 2x... but just about the only thing Americans are less likely to understand than government or economics is mathematics...

The only reason that a larger number of people can be made to demand a larger percentage of income be collected in taxes is because the additional voters being served are not the ones whose income is being confiscated. Simply put, "when you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul". And that's especially true when there are two Pauls for every Peter and it's a matter of popular vote.

couzin wrote:"The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign affairs. Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our General Government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants." (Thomas Jefferson - March 1800)

Nothing new...

Yessir.

Mr. 72 wrote:This quote sums it up:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: "from bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage." --Alexander Frazier Tytler, published in 1776.

There is no sensible argument to be made that a greater number of people in the USA necessitates each person pay a greater percentage of their income to support the government activity. In fact, the converse should certainly be true, given the economy of scale. However, we are way, way beyond the edge of the curve on the economy of scale. In Oatmeal, TX, it can be argued that adding that one more police officer or repairing the fire department's leaky roof may create an additional per-capita tax burden, since maybe one police officer can support population of x and a population of x+1 requires double the expenditure on police officers, until which time as the population has grown to 2x... but just about the only thing Americans are less likely to understand than government or economics is mathematics...

The only reason that a larger number of people can be made to demand a larger percentage of income be collected in taxes is because the additional voters being served are not the ones whose income is being confiscated. Simply put, "when you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul". And that's especially true when there are two Pauls for every Peter and it's a matter of popular vote.

Indeed, sir.

My contribution along those lines:

The budget should be balanced, the treasury refilled, public debt reduced, the arrogance of officialdom tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.

~~ Quintus Tullius Cicero, 55 B.C.

We all know what happened to Rome.

It seems the Texas Sunset provision would apply here. It has legislatively caused state agencies to be automatically abolished after 12 years unless the legislature intervenes to save that same agency. I personally love the law and it does tend to shrink the government's size as agencies are abolished.

TheArmedFarmer wrote:It seems the Texas Sunset provision would apply here. It has legislatively caused state agencies to be automatically abolished after 12 years unless the legislature intervenes to save that same agency. I personally love the law and it does tend to shrink the government's size as agencies are abolished.

They should make it apply to all laws, period.