> ...government should be small enough to be able to be drowned in a bathtub... The key piece you're missing is that this is the case for national government,

> ...government should be small enough to be able to be drowned in a bathtub... The key piece you're missing is that this is the case for national government, because the rest should be managed at, ideally, the local government level where citizens are able to self-govern, such as on city council meetings. That power should move up the organizational structure only as far as it needs to (for instance, you cannot build interstate highways at the city level). In a country the size of the US, consolidating political power at the national level turns politics into the spectator sport it's become.