# Do US Republicans really want a smaller government or just a different one? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 18, 2012, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223 "2012-02-18T03:08:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jasper\_Kent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@Jasper\_Kent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasper_Kent)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/21 "2012-02-21T19:58:58Z")
I live in TN, a very red state, so I know a lot of Republicans-- many of them personally. What I hear is that they want gov’t somewhat smaller, but _mostly different:_ Lower taxes, less funding for social programs, fewer regulations, more local control. **BUT** More military spending, more legislation of morality, stricter law enforcement(of blue-collar crime), harsher anti-drug laws ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/22 "2012-02-21T20:03:02Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > That’s because the fiscal conservatives at the top are very good at whipping the social conservatives at the bottom into a state of permanent patriotic frenzy. Actually, I think that this primary season shows that the GOP elites have lost control of the mob that they pander to and now the mob is in charge, but the mob doesn’t really know what it wants. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/23 "2012-02-21T21:29:23Z")
The Republican leadership wants whatever funnels the most money into the pockets of their wealthy overlords. The want smaller government when it comes to cutting regulations on business or eliminating any program that benefits the poor or middle class. The want larger government when it comes to lucrative military spending or any social issue that will get the rubes out to the polls. The GOP has one and only one overriding agenda: **More Money For Rich People.** Everything else they claim to stand for is either a backdoor approach to achieving their primary agenda, or a cynical attempt to manipulate people into voting against their self-interest. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/24 "2012-02-21T21:43:53Z")
They want a smaller government because it would give more power to the local government. It’s not that they don’t want government, they just want government that agrees with them. ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/25 "2012-02-22T01:49:41Z")
> [@Jasper\_Kent](#): > > I live in TN, a very red state, so I know a lot of Republicans-- many of them personally. What I hear is that they want gov’t somewhat smaller, but _mostly different:_ > > Lower taxes, less funding for social programs, fewer regulations, more local control. > > **BUT** > > More military spending, more legislation of morality, stricter law enforcement(of blue-collar crime), harsher anti-drug laws So they want the Soviet Union?? ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/26 "2012-02-22T03:30:05Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > I remember in 2006 when Dubya announced his moderate stance on immigration. I was deployed to Iraq with some staunch Bush supporters who were in strong disagreement with Bush’s new immigration stance. But instead of criticizing _him_, they blamed ‘liberal pressure’. Bush _couldn’t_ be to blame, because he was one of them. Was my brother-in-law there with you? This is exactly the same shit I hear from him every time. It’s them big, bad big spending liberals and if the GOP passes a bill, then it was Democrats who were to blame, even when the GOP controlled everything. Going by memory, in American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare, Jason DeParle describes how one rich farmer was paid more in federal aid than all of the welfare recipients in that that during the early days of welfare. Unfortunately, one of my friends has the book so I can’t verify it. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/27 "2012-02-23T01:38:11Z")
> [@Jasper\_Kent](#): > > I live in TN, a very red state, so I know a lot of Republicans-- many of them personally. What I hear is that they want gov’t somewhat smaller, but _mostly different:_ > > Lower taxes, less funding for social programs, fewer regulations, more local control. > > **BUT** > > More military spending, more legislation of morality, stricter law enforcement(of blue-collar crime), harsher anti-drug laws And the funding will come from where, exactly? ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/28 "2012-02-24T01:29:04Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > This is more of a question for me since I don’t know much about US politics (I’m not American) but it’s clearly not going to have a definitive answer. > > Reading some other threads I’ve begun to wonder this. I often hear Republicans say they want less government. It seems a pretty standard answer in the [thread asking non-religious Republicans why they favour that party](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=641797). But do Republican candidates really stand for a smaller government, or just one that pokes its nose into other places? From what I understand there’s a lot of support in the Republican party for banning abortions, tighter drug draws, tighter laws on “morality”, banning of bad influences etc. > > So can it truly be said they want a smaller government? Opinions? The point you are missing is that “liberal” and “conservative” have meaning across two axes–the fiscal axis and the social axis. The fiscal axis is about what someone wants the government to do. Fiscal conservatives want smaller government in the sense that they want the government’s activities to be restricted only to certain spheres. Fiscal liberals want the government to accomplish their goals related to “social justice” and fairness and don’t really care about the spheres in which the government acts. The social axis is about morality–how the government should relate to issues that people feel have a moral dimension. Social conservatives want the government to enforce traditional notions of morality (drugs are bad, abortions are bad, gay marriage is bad). Social liberals think the government has no business legislating morality. So, you haven’t identified some great hypocrisy among “conservatives,” because there’s no such thing as “a conservative” that’s separate from one of the two axes. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/29 "2012-02-24T03:24:57Z")
Not hypocrisy, but plenty of confusion and conflict (as when both a social and a fiscal conservative claim that they are the “true conservative”). There is some overlap: a social conservative who opposes stupidly generous welfare programs as corrosive to the work ethic will find common ground with libertarian types. But the religious ones seem to eventually make the leap to things like birth control or obscenity laws, assuming everyone who likes the C-word is kindred. And if you really want to screw up the notion that there is such a thing as “conservative” ideology, there’s the protectionist-globalist dichotomy. And the isolationist-interventionist one… ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/30 "2012-02-24T14:56:24Z")
As has already been noted, the cant that the Republican leadership mouths hardly matters, it is the wealthy who control the Republican Party. That is why whenever Republicans get elected they spend like drunken sailors, enact fiscal policies that favor the wealthy over the middle class and the poor, and make halfhearted attempts at enacting social conservative ideals. Exactly what you’d expect of cynical pols in the pocket of big money. So the stated goals of Republicans does not matter: they are what they are. ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2012, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/31 "2012-02-26T03:17:25Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > The GOP has one and only one overriding agenda: **More Money For Rich People.** Everything else they claim to stand for is either a backdoor approach to achieving their primary agenda, or a cynical attempt to manipulate people into voting against their self-interest. Brilliant. And so true! ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/32 "2012-02-26T17:10:10Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > … IRS budget … cuts not only help make taxpayers hate government (a key aim of much GOP policy) but, since the IRS is … surprise! … a profit center, each $1 cut in the IRS budget doesn’t save the Treasury $1, but rather costs it $9. I find it instructive that no one showed up to challenge this fact. This one fact should tell you more than you need to know about the government fiscal policy advocated by GOP. Please note that “Taxxes is bad. We patriotts are so prowd that genius George Bush lowured our taxxes” does not justify reducing IRS budget. Properly funding IRS does not raise the tax rate and does not affect legislated tax loopholes. Those who eviscerate IRS are deliberately transferring money from the U.S. Treasury to tax-cheating criminals. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/33 "2012-02-26T20:41:03Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Those who eviscerate IRS are deliberately transferring money from the U.S. Treasury to **tax-cheating criminals.** Ahem. “Job creators.” ---
**Author:** ![Jasper\_Kent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@Jasper\_Kent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasper_Kent)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/34 "2012-02-27T00:36:59Z")
> [@Imasquare](#): > > So they want the Soviet Union?? I reckon. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/35 "2012-02-27T00:40:11Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > So can it truly be said they want a smaller government? In a democracy, it might be said that the electorate is the government, and Republicans certainly want a smaller electorate. ---
**Author:** ![Jasper\_Kent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@Jasper\_Kent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasper_Kent)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/36 "2012-02-27T00:45:10Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > And the funding will come from where, exactly? From what I gather, the belief is that lower taxes and fewer regulations will boost the economy so much that tax revenues will actually _increase._ Also, with less money going to health, education, and welfare, more money is freed up to go to the more important task of killing brown people. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/37 "2012-02-27T01:18:40Z")
> [@Jasper\_Kent](#): > > From what I gather, the belief is that lower taxes and fewer regulations will boost the economy so much that tax revenues will actually _increase._ Also, with less money going to health, education, and welfare, more money is freed up to go to the more important task of killing brown people. Less money going toward health, education and welfare will ALSO kill brown people. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/38 "2012-02-27T01:57:27Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > But do Republican candidates really stand for a smaller government, or just one that pokes its nose into other places? From what I understand there’s a lot of support in the Republican party for banning abortions, tighter drug draws, tighter laws on “morality”, banning of bad influences etc. I can’t speak for all Republicans—maybe I shouldn’t speak for any of them—but I think the Republican party is the party that appeals to people who long for the good old days, when the government was smaller, abortion was illegal, “morality” was more tightly enforced, and gee our old LaSalle ran great. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/39 "2012-02-27T02:01:30Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Less money going toward health, education and welfare will ALSO kill brown people. It’s your classic Republican win-win! ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223/40 "2012-02-27T02:39:23Z")
Wait, wasn’t there some rule around here against taking political jabs? I guess we’ll see. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-us-republicans-really-want-a-smaller-government-or-just-a-different-one/613223.md?page=3)