My Political Philosophy

I decided that I should provide some background on the way that I think. Hopefully, this will provide a foundation upon which other political discussions can build.

The age old question concerning government is: what size government is best. Of course few can agree on any particular answer. Communists want it to govern everything, while others favor a Laissez Faire view. Ultimately, the size of government you want depends on what you want the government to do for you.

I am a practical thinker. I enjoy taking facts and piecing together plausible solutions. Using this method, I have come to a few conclusions.

There are many reasons that a governments power expands over time. The first reason is that it is easier to add on laws than to replace. When we as a people request new benefits the government cannot easily replace the old benefit system with a new more effective system. It instead adds on to the old which adds new levels of bureaucracy and duplicate departments.

Government also expands because of its large pockets. People tend to think that with the trillions of dollars in the government’s treasury, the government could take care of their problems. It is easy to think that your insurance bill is just pocket change beneath a trillion dollar umbrella.

With a few facts, and simple deductions, the idea of a large government is quickly undermined. A large government is entirely impractical. There is no way that the federal government can fulfill your individual or community’s needs. It has too many tasks to look after and your individual voice will be lost in the pleas of every other dissatisfied citizen.

I have compiled two reasons to shrink the size of federal government.

Accountability:
If we permit government to grow too large, we will no longer be able to hold the government accountable for its actions. The complexity of government limits the American public’s ability to find who is not representing them appropriately. Government becomes a blame game, departments and agencies all blaming each other, grinding progression to a halt. The more streamlined a government is, the easier it is to diagnose the disease in the system and eradicate it.

Efficiency:
Picture yourself in a room with a hundred corridors, each one leading to a problem that requires you attention. Even if you had a hundred men at your command, your progress would still be slow. The men under you would have to assess the problem, report to you, and then run back down the hallway. Finally, they would begin to address the issue, returning regularly to report their progress. That process would be slow and inefficient. Yet this is how our current government works. Congress is filled with thousands of reports and very little action. Government would run much smoother if problems were addressed at the local level. With a smaller federal government and larger local governments, solutions would better suit your individual need, and prevent costly wastes of time with solutions that don't match your needs.

The resized federal government no longer needing to focus on local issues could better service the needs of the whole nation. It would better be able to "provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty" like it was originally designed to do, instead of sapping tax dollars to feed a hungry bureaucracy.