There is this idea that government is too big, that it needs to be shrunk. This is based on two ideas, lower taxes and that if given the chance people will do the right thing. I think it is pretty clear from our current situation that power, greed, and a lack of ‘doing what is best everyone and not just me’ is the prevailing thought. Government is here to do a couple basic things. Keep our world running in terms of roads, water, sewage, etc. and keep people honest (enforcement of laws). The former is more housekeeping than anything. If it snows throw some salt on the roads. The later is where inlays the rub and is a concept that people fail to realize. Laws are here to protect us…from us. That is people doing things that impacts other people in a negative way. My favorite was during the oil spill last spring where people who support big government also expected them to have some elaborate plan waiting to be put into motion to mitigate the incident. Disaster Planing takes a lot of time to create, train, test, and maintain…all of which equates to money and resources. You cannot have it both ways.
Laws are created from when someone did something so stupid and the resulting outrage was so great that the people empowered the government to put laws in place to prevent said stupidity from happening again. So deregulating or creating smaller government assumes that people will do the right thing (again) and that they can be trusted. History has shown this is never the case. It is always the few that rune it for the masses…but that is what rules and laws are there for, to keep the exceptions in line with the rule. We the normal people, we are the rule.