James Madison famously said, “If men were angels, we would need no government.” Days after the IRS and other scandals came to light, it appears that quote needs a re-evaluation. The government has grown well past its original intentions and is wading into the murky waters of targeting those who wish to hold it accountable.
The fact is, government is too big, and it tries to do too many things. Sometimes it succeeds, but it rarely excels. Jon Stewart recently joked that “the government lacks any real ‘managerial competence’ when it wants to do good, but when it wants to flex some malevolent muscles, it suddenly becomes Iron Man.”
News that the IRS was targeting tax-exempt groups and the Department of Justice (DOJ) had seized phone records of The Associated Press eroded away at what trust is left in government. Yet, when we consider the larger context, the government’s recent actions do so much more. They speak to a culture in Washington fueled by an ever-enlarging bureaucracy. One that presents ample opportunity for abuse by our leaders or simply poor judgment by mid-level bureaucrats.
This same culture was evident in the recent sequester debacle, which featured Americans in long airport security lines waiting for delayed flights – a "self-inflicted wound" from politicians who simply wanted spending cuts to be as visible as possible. This was uncovered in a letter from an FAA employee who claimed that management had stated in meetings that furloughs should be carried out in such a way that the public understood how serious the cuts were.
Overspending in Washington has fueled an expansion of the federal government and higher taxes are justified by citing the essential services it provides. Often lost in the argument are the billions of taxpayer dollars wasted on duplicate or questionable programs and the long-term consequences of this irresponsible spending. The larger government gets, the more regulations emerge, the more intrusive it can become, and the potential for abuse grows.
Recent polling underscores Americans' attitudes toward their leaders in Washington. According to a recent AP poll, just "7 percent of Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right 'just about always,'… Fourteen percent say they trust it 'most' of the time. Two-thirds trust the federal government only some of the time; 11 percent say they never do."
Despite all this mistrust for government it continues to grow and crowd out the private sector. Despite all this mistrust for government it continues to grow and crowd out the private sector. Over the past 20 years, government spending has increased 63 percent while entitlement spending alone has gone up 110 percent, even when adjusting for inflation. This, along with the bailouts of the auto industry, big banking and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act all signal an era of big government rather than the free market, and of debt and spending rather than innovation and prosperity.
But mistrust in government wasn’t always the norm, according to the Pew Research Center, in 1958 73 percent of Americans trusted the government. It is no surprise that back then the size of the federal government was a fraction of what it is today.
Perhaps that's why Americans broadly support cutting the spending that fuels growth of government. A Public Notice poll from last month shows nearly two-thirds of likely voters think cutting spending and taxes would do more to grow the economy than higher taxes and more spending. Trust in government, or lack thereof, is at the heart of these numbers.
Economist Milton Friedman observed that the solution to our problem isn’t to simply elect the right people, but to establish a political climate that makes it politically profitable for the wrong person to do the right things. Our leaders may not always operate with the best intentions, but a smaller government would diminish the opportunities for bad behavior.
In a bureaucracy this large, problems are hardly self-contained. They spill over in various ways, from businesses that must to hire lawyers to sift through endless legal red tape to non-profit groups worried about whether they are on the right side of White House policy.
Whether the abuse in this case goes all the way to the top doesn’t matter, nor do the politics of those involved; it's the culture that fuels these activities. The culture that willingly wields the branches of government to protect its own self-interest will not change as long as the incentives are aligned to make it all possible. That atmosphere will remain intact until we see a massive downsizing of government. The first place to start is to drastically cut spending. This, and this alone, will slow the growth of government and help restore its functions to only those are essential for liberty.
If James Madison’s trite phrase holds true, it raises a question: What, exactly, is government made of?
Gretchen Hamel is Executive Director of Public Notice, working on the "Bankrupting America" campaign to make the American public aware of the cost and effect of government economic, regulatory and budget issues.
