Sustainable reductions in the size of government depend upon stronger social values and institutions.
“The Era Of Big Government Is Over.”
- Bill Clinton
Unfortunately – and not for the first time – Bill Clinton wasn’t speaking the truth.
The ‘Era Of Big Government’ continues. George W Bush has greatly increased the size of American government and, in Britain, Gordon Brown has fattened government with the help of some very regressive and stealthy taxes.
The continuing growth of government represents a significant ideological victory for the political left. They have falsely framed the debate as a choice between better public services or lower taxation. It’s a debate that – at least in Britain – the ‘bigger state left’ have been winning.
Conservative talk of smaller government often frightens voters. People may like the idea of targeted tax relief but they will be reluctant to vote for them if they fear that the opportunity cost of lower taxation might be fewer hospital beds or abandoned pensioners.
The desirability of smaller government
In order to start the winning the argument conservatives need to show:
- that Britain’s public services need reform at least as much as they need more taxapayers’ money;
- that much existing public spending is either wasted or used to prop up an ineffective civil service bureaucracy;
- that high taxes destroy jobs and the wealth that public investment depends upon; and
- a stronger society is more like to deliver holistic care to needy people than a feed-and-forget welfare state.
Smaller government depends upon a reduction in the demand for government
The fourth point is particularly important. Conservatives have been too focused on reducing the supply of government and have paid too little attention to the demand for government. In democracies a hurried withdrawal of government services – particularly for the needy – will result in an electoral backlash. Although the public wants welfare reform – with more help targeted on the genuinely vulnerable - it first wants something better to be put in the place of the welfare state. The public does not want small government at the price of social misery.
Compassionate conservatives believe that the vigorous virtues of the welfare society need to be rebuilt before a sustained reduction in the size of government will be possible. If families and the charitable impulse are stronger there will be less social need for governments to address.
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