How Much Government is ‘Enough Government’?

How much government is “enough government” to get the job done?

For most of our nation’s history, our axiom was that we would have just enough government to do what private individuals and groups could not do for themselves.  That’s why private individuals and groups handled things like charity for most of our nation’s history.

But in an era where we no longer care what our nation’s highest law says, and lawlessness is the order of the day, taxers and spenders look for things to take away from the private sector and put into the hands of government.

As this video from Prager University asks, when was the last time you saw a liberal politician (in either of the two major parties) say, “Yeah, we solved that social ill,” and say it’s time to end a government program?

Even adjusted for inflation, the federal government is seven times bigger now than it was in 1948 (and FDR had just finished expanding government way beyond its constitutional limits back then, as the first American president who completely gave the U.S. Constitution the middle finger).  Back then, 17% of our GDP went to government spending. Now, 32% of our Gross Domestic Product goes to government spending. That is money that a free people produced, that they should be able to spend as they see fit, not as some bureaucrat sees fit.

Under such systems (like socialist Europe, and the way the United States is unfortunately going), the number of producers declines, and the number of takers grows.  This only make sense, as more and more people figure out it’s easier to depend others for their sustenance than it is to produce their sustenance for themselves.  But this parasitical system can only survive for so long, before there aren’t enough producers to feed the taking masses, and it all falls apart.

The founders of the United States, by design, created a government that was limited, and could not–according to law–grow into what we have unlawfully allowed the federal government to become. As “Father of the Constitution” James Madison tells us in Federalist No. 45:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.

But in our arrogance, we have come to “interpret” our nation’s highest law in reverse: the powers taken by the federal government are numerous and indefinite, while the powers of the State governments are few and defined.  In other words, the states can take care of the petty stuff that the federal government doesn’t care about (or simply hasn’t widened its maw enough to consume yet), while the federal government deals with the “important stuff.”

And the list of that “important” stuff just keeps getting longer and longer, with the list of “problems” the federal government claims to be “solving” for us never seems to get solved.

No, according to liberals, you can throw trillions at a problem over decades, and the problem never “gets better.” For example, here we are today, decades after institutional racism was ended and we have a black president, yet the rhetoric of the race pimps would have us believe that Democrats are still keeping black Americans out of restaurants and turning the firehoses on them the way Democrats used to before they started pandering for votes.  Why is the picture of faux racism still painted by the Left, and the seeds of ethnic division sewn by liberals?  Because it sells–it sells big government, more taxing and spending, more attacks on freedom, and more ways to undermine the traditional American principles of individual liberty and responsibility.

How much government is enough government? Why don’t we ask the meth addict “How much meth is enough meth?” Because he never seems to get enough…just like big government socialists in both parties never seem to get enough of your money, or enough government.

That’s why the founders of this great nation created a constitution that intentionally and specificially limited government. They were wise enough, even over two centuries ago, to realize that power in the hands of all but the most virtuous of men is a drug that never satisfies, but produces insatiability.

With our federal government now spending $4 TRILLION a year (yes, not $4 million, not $4 billion, not even $400 billion, but $4 TRILLION), and a sizable chunk of that money we don’t have, and over 60% of that spending being spent on things that aren’t even authorized by the U.S. Constitution, how much is enough???

We’re well past the time when Americans must say “NO!” and push ourselves and our fellow Americans back from the trough, and return our nation to lawful, constitutional, limited government.  That is, if we want this greatest nation on earth to continue. If we don’t, we can just continue spending away our prosperity and our liberty, and it’ll all fall apart in a few decades at most.

Which would you rather?  Preserve the greatest nation in history, or kill the goose that laid the golden eggs and eat it all up today?

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Bob Ellis has been the owner of media company Dakota Voice, LLC since 2005. He is a 10-year U.S. Air Force veteran, a political reporter and commentator for the past decade, and has been involved in numerous election and public policy campaigns for over 20 years. He was a founding member and board member of the Tea Party groups Citizens for Liberty and the South Dakota Tea Party Alliance. He lives in Rapid City, South Dakota with his wife and two children.

Bob Ellis

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