Honest opinion about government from Aaron Wildavsky:
Why don't I like big government? It breeds dependency, which is bad for the moral fiber of the citizenry. It breaks down, which brings disrespect. When the rate of return on government securities is higher than in the stock market, which it has been for sometime, thinking of government as one's main source of support is as understandable as it is unfortunate. In falling, as it were, by its own weight, big government threatens to take a free society with it. The liberty we prize is compromised when it appears to result in government that does too much and accomplishes too little. The disrepute of democracy is the high price we pay for elephantiasis of the political organs.
There was a time, no later than the 1950s, when liberals lusted after federal expenditure to do good. If only there were billions for higher education or for mass transportation or for mental health, on and on, what wonders would be performed! Now we know better. Government is an inadequate and expensive replacement for the family. Deep-seated behavior, requiring the cooperation of the convert, is difficult to change at any price. Those who used to argue that federal money would not bring federal effort to control education, like I did as a college student, have had their naivete exposed. It is not that public policy is good for nothing, but that it is not good for everything. And the more that is done, the more programs like disaster insurance and Medicaid lead to huge, unanticipated costs, the less we understand or are able to alter them. Thus it is reasonable for us to reconsider what has been done over the decades with a view to perfecting our preferences about what we ought to want. But reconsidering and revamping public policy cannot be carried on seriously while government is expanding on all cylinders and in every sector.
How to Limit Government Spending, 1980
Aaron Wildavsky is a professor of political science and public policy as well as a member of the Surrey Research Center at the University of California at Berkeley. The editor of several works, his own writings include How to Limit Government Spending (1980), A History of Taxation and Expenditure in the Western World (with Carolyn Webber, 1986), Presidential Elections (with Nelson Polsby, 7th edition, 1988), Searching for Safety (1988), The Deficit and the Public Interest (with Joseph White, 1989), and Assimilation Versus Separation (1993).
Quotation and short bio from The Quotable Conservative: The Giants of Conservatism on Liberty, Freedom, Individual Responsibility, and Traditional Values. Rod L. Evans and Irwin M. Berent, editors. Holbrook, Mass.: Adams Publishing, 1996.