Right, that's what I'm trying to say. As another commenter put it, > Govt doing the same things but having them done by contractors does not make it "smaller".

Right, that's what I'm trying to say. As another commenter put it, > Govt doing the same things but having them done by contractors does not make it "smaller". There's a crucial distinction between "privatization of govt" and "smaller govt" which usually gets lost in the public discourse.