4 ms·
It means damn near nothing, getting to ideologically have your cake and eat it too. Reform is hard and involves details. Whining about "too much government" d
by jbooth 13y ago
It means damn near nothing, getting to ideologically have your cake and eat it too.
Reform is hard and involves details. Whining about "too much government" doesn't require any details at all. It's like Paul Ryan's budget plan that has huge line items of savings under, and I'm not making this up, "spending cuts" and "tax reform", with no further specifics. Hey, who could be against that? There's nothing negative about it, just some huge savings!
You want less government? Great. Get a marker and about 5 million pages in your printer and start printing out the US budget to mark it up for your suggestions. Because there isn't a single whole department you could cut without seriously screwing up society, you have to get into the weeds.
Want to cut this NSA program? Great, I agree with you. We do need the NSA around in some form with a smaller mandate, though.
Want to eliminate the FCC? You probably haven't thought about why it's illegal for me to buy a 1,000MW transmitter and drown out WNBC with Rick Astley on repeat.
Want to eliminate entitlements? You need a backup plan that won't have people dying in the streets, and actually spends less money. Looping in private contractors to spend more money or provide less benefits is not smaller government.
All 3 of these scenarios (and I could keep going) involve smarter government. Sure, saving money means "less" in some senses but the point is being smarter, not just randomly being upset at the aggregate size of things that you support in isolation.