Introduction:

The size of the government to a very large extent depended upon two important macro and micro economic concepts. Large governments should impact the social sectors vey definitely and large governments have an increased role to play by bringing in policies and reforms directly for the people without any intermediaries. The size of the government is also decided upon by the deadweight burden that is caused by private sector funds transfer and the resultant effect of this of increased burdens on tax payers .This seems to be too technical a definition of how large governments should be but the fact remains that if governments have to really play the role of a welfare state and make inclusive reforms for people they have to be large so that every sector of the economy including the very important social sectors can be clearly attended to .

Size of the government:

A large government has with it many advantages and with many issues too. The first and the foremost is should governments be big and if so who will be paying for such big governments. Hence the bigger the government the higher is the taxes that people will have to pay to support government spending. Over the years government threshold spending has been increasing at an alarming rate justifying the fact that government is growing in size, which is evident from the figure below

The articles of confederation assumed that the division of power between the state and the centre was to purport better concepts of the union of states. Though initially the size of the union government or the federal government as it was called was aimed to be small to effectively mediate of state polices, the ineffective functioning of state governments led to the federal government increasing in size and with it the spending of the federal government also increased with more subjects being bought under the federal perspective. The challenges that arose from a massively growing federal government had to be supported by the states and the citizens. It was left to populist votes and the congress to assume proprietary concerns over the size of the government.

The powers that are shared between the state and the centre is also a very decisive factor in judging the size of government. Where the powers are shared equally and many subjects are brought under state purview, the federal government has only few areas of jurisdiction. This will enable the federal government to remain small and work effectively in those areas over which it has its subjective and objective review. But with growing powers being given to the federal government more and more subject shave been taken up by federal government to supervise, oversee and have review. As many departments have to be necessarily stipulated as being subject to federal jurisdiction, the size of the government has to increase. A good check and balance system can work only if there is a government which is big enough to handle the various departments through its tripod machinery. Though the onus of upkeep of the large government ultimately falls on the tax payers and private sector, it cannot be denied that larger the government, greater the beauracracy and higher the standards of performance.

Conclusion:

It is populist opinion that smaller governments can work on shoe string budgets and bring great relief to tax payers but large governments intervene in making the government machinery transparent and policies and reforms towards betterment of society and citizens.

References:

Feldstein, Martin.“Tax Avoidance and the Deadweight Loss of the Income Tax.” NBER Working Paper No. 5055. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1995b

James Robison and Jay Richards, INDIVISIBLE: Restoring Faith, Family and Freedom before It’s Too Late, February 20, 2012

Micheletti, M. (2000), End of Big Government: Is It Happening in the Nordic Countries?. Governance, 13: 265–278. doi: 10.1111/0952-1895.00134

Patrick Garry (June 14, 2011). “The meaning of big government”. Renew America. Retrieved 26 April 2012. Peter Lindhert (2004). “Does Big Government Hurt Economic Growth”. St. Johns University. Retrieved 26 April 2012.http://blogs.hbr.org/fox/2013/01/how-big-should-government-be.htmlhttp://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/Articles