It is mind-boggling how much money the federal government spends. And yet very few of us feel like we’ve gotten a very Big Bang for our buck. I am a “small government” Jefferson style Democrat — where government regulation serves no useful purpose other than the perpetuate the federal bureaucracy, then I am against it. But where government allows us to do things together (like national defense, and national parks) that we could not do individually, then I am all for it.