"Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other." — The New York Times Magazine (14 November 1965), p. 174
"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism." –Reason Magazine (1 July 1975)
"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."–Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
"I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself."
–Joke at the Gridiron Club annual dinner. (24 March 1984)
"A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not." –(Testimony to the Tower Commission) (4 March 1987)
President Ronald Reagan advocated the style of limited government, yet the substance was sorely lacking, like the disembodied spirit of the Headless Horseman, or Drake McHugh, Reagan's star-breaking role in the 1942 film Kings Row, sans lower appendanges. McHugh Cutting tax rates across the board early in his first term jumpstarted the economy, long lagging under stagflation and anemic growth. However, Reagan did not tackle entitlements, which were predicted to eat away at the dwindling revenue of the United States Treasury, an all too somber reality which today's political class and outraged populace are grappling with.
The United States now, more than every, needs specific policy, not just politics, to fend off the economic calamities poised to take down this nation.
Despite Reagan's pithy with, government is the necessary evil, the part of the solution to the problem of Big Government Getting Bigger.
Consider James Madison's oft-quoted passage in Federalist #51:
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."
Unlike the exclusive attacks against Big Government itself, Madison focused in on the root causes of outrageous Government, the people themselves.
Madison continues:
"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
It is necessary condition that government plays a role in governing, both the people and itself. Afterwards, Madison writes:
"A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
We cannot dismiss the required role of government entirely in the growing concern to stop the growth of government. Furthermore, we must recognize the need not just to cut taxes, or even to cut spending, but to induce checks and balances within the systems of government, which will frustrate the divisive and self-serving ambitions of unangelic mankind. A discussion for limiting government cannot excoriate or exclude government, just as demonizing the systems of rule in society as one never-satisfied digestive system does not cure what ails the entire body.
Popular uproar against Government must include unpopular denunciation of state and individual dependence on government. Otherwise, the result is Conservatism without the constraints, or a conservatism that conserves nothing, or a handicapped conservatism that goes nowhere, just like Reagan's character in the movie "King's Row", Drake McHugh, who has both legs amputated by a vengeful surgeon.
Those who appeal for a Reagan Revival as resurgence for fiscal discipline will find very little in Reagan's active legacy to support his impressive rhetoric.
"Where's the rest of us?" will be the untimely discovery by conservatives, the Republican party, and the nation if we do not fuse persuasion with necessary, though unpopular, budget-cutting action.