Our federal government is a behemoth. The fiscal year 2019 budget stands at $4.5 trillion, which is 21.3 percent of GDP. The current federal debt, on paper, exceeds $22 trillion and has grown on average nearly a trillion dollars a year over the last decade. Off the balance sheet, the unfunded liabilities could add at least another $50 trillion, depending on how it is estimated. The federal government employs approximately 2 million people.
There are 15 executive departments, and the number of agencies depends on who is counting, and how. As citizens, we experience an ever-growing expanse of government, impacting virtually every aspect of our lives. Thus, elections become commensurately impactful. Those who win elections direct this bloated mass of resources and power in a manner which the losing party inevitably finds antithetical.
Of course, emotions are not some mathematical game theory problem. The results are real and impactful. They have become rather binary, and we have become vastly forked along political lines. But there is a correlation in our prisoner’s dilemma puzzle between the severity of outcome and the power of the government. The less impactful government is on our lives, the less a binary election matters. The more impactful government is in one’s life, the more extreme the results of an election will be. Is everyone willing to simply flip a coin to be extremely happy or extremely bitter? That is where we currently stand.
Perhaps, instead, we can limit government. By reducing the magnitude of government, we can move our country to the point where elections are vastly less impactful on our well-being. We can reduce the animosity we currently have for each other, and instead bask in the glow of the freedoms we have been bestowed. Government has a natural tendency to metastasize. It is our duty as citizens to curtail that.
