Of course at the same time these anti-big-government folks are busily diminishing the role of government in other areas. The funds available for child development programs keep shrinking. The education and housing programs that are sadly needed in this great nation keep losing ground. The job creation and adult education programs that have marked every recession since the great depression have disappeared along with three million jobs during their assumption of power. Abroad they are also failing to fulfill the minimum obligations of a conquering nation which is to provide security, food and jobs to the conquered populace. The revenue decreases brought on by their tax cuts will make it impossible to fund those needed programs any time soon regardless of how badly they are needed to get this country and Iraq and Afghanistan back on the track of full employment. Their bias is clearly for a government that controls more and more of our lives and those of citizens of other nations while improving their lots in life not one whit. This was the worst kind of big government from the perspective of those who founded this nation and grew it to greatness.

I am not so much offended by our leaders' duplicity as I am saddened by the complaisance of the public in this nation. We are accustomed to living lives of productive effort in this nation and we like to believe that we play as hard as we work. Lately I have watched a lot of people working too hard and too many hours to leave any time to play. This is called enhanced productivity by some of our dumber economists. It is more like a kind of pressure cooker approach to distributing work to fewer and fewer people while reducing the workforce of this nation substantially. When will the economic pundits begin to grasp that lost jobs enhance productivity every time? Productivity gains in times of full employment are real, productivity gains in times of shrinking labor forces are not really gains at all. They are measures of now much blood is in the sweat of the remaining workers in the labor force. Furthermore the fools, damn fools, and statisticians who predict the direction of our economy are missing a simple fact. Those who still have a paycheck cannot make up for the lost purchasing power of the unemployed and underemployed millions! The sound foundation of a solid economy is a well-paid consumer every time! The rich consume less per dollar "earned" by their investments than the poor who must spend everything they get their hands on. The middle class spend heavily in times of full employment and reduce their spending in times of fear and trembling caused by employment cuts.

I do see some signs of a growing sense of "being had" by the policies of this administration in the middle class but it may be too little too late to help much. If the next election places the same crowd of cronies and self-aggrandizers back in office we are destined to really lose a lot of momentum and a significant portion of our middle class in the bargain. It is significantly due to the redistributive efforts of government that encouraged small businesses and the entrepreneurs that build companies that our middle class is as strong and healthy as it is today. That redistribution often took the form of tax breaks for funding new enterprise that incentivised the wealthy to part with their money as investment dollars in new businesses. The recent tax changes have reduced that incentive and will thus create less dollars than if they had been given for assuming real risk in investment in new businesses. The benefit of the tax reductions for the wealthy is just as real to them if the money is encouraged to flow into new enterprise by the government rather than merely handed out for the purpose of expanding a stagnant economy. It is a lot more real to the rest of us!
If the government is broke we, the people, are tasked with fixing it. This is why I am giving a far more significant amount of money to the candidates of my choice than I have in the past. It is also why I listen carefully to the proposals of those with whom I vehemently disagree. The great debate in this nation is about who will have jobs and money, not social status. Oh yes one does beget the other but in the past it was possible for those without either to attain both over a couple of generations. I think that in order for that to remain true we will have to change our government soon. This is a government of the cronies, by the cronies, for the benefit of the cronies. It must perish from the earth if the rest of us are to flourish. God bless and keep you all safe in these times of both big and little government.