Big government
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Big government is a pejorative term for a
government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...
or
public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, inf ...
that is considered excessively large or unconstitutionally involved in certain areas of
public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public ...
or the
private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...
. The term may also be used specifically in relation to government policies that attempt to regulate matters considered to be private or personal such as private
sexual behavior Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts, ranging from activities done alone (e.g., masturbation) t ...
or individual food choices – similar to the British term '
nanny state Nanny state is a term of British origin that conveys a view that a government or its policies are overprotective or interfering unduly with personal choice. The term likens such a government to the role that a nanny has in child rearing. An early ...
'. The term has also been used in the context of the United States to define a dominant federal government that seeks to control the authority of local
institution Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
s – an example being the overriding of state authority in favor of federal
legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred to ...
.


Definition

Big government is primarily defined by its size, measured by the budget or number of employees, either in absolute terms or relative to the overall national economy.


See also

*
Corporate welfare Corporate welfare is a phrase used to describe a government's bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment for corporations. The definition of corporate welfare is sometimes restricted to direct government subsidie ...
*
Limited government In political philosophy, limited government is the concept of a government limited in power. It is a key concept in the history of liberalism.Amy Gutmann, "How Limited Is Liberal Government" in Liberalism Without Illusions: Essays on Liberal Th ...
*
Lemon socialism Lemon socialism is a pejorative term for a form of government intervention in which government subsidies go to weak or failing firms (''lemons''; see Lemon law), with the effective result that the government (and thus the taxpayer) absorbs part ...
*
Managerial state The managerial state is a concept used in critiquing modern procedural democracy. The concept is used largely, though not exclusively, in paleolibertarian, paleoconservative, and anarcho-capitalist critiques of late modern state power in Weste ...
* Minarchism * Night watchman state *
Small government Libertarian conservatism, also referred to as conservative libertarianism and conservatarianism, is a political and social philosophy that combines conservatism and libertarianism, representing the libertarian wing of conservatism and vice ver ...
*
Social engineering (political science) Social engineering is a top-down effort to influence particular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale—most often undertaken by governments, but also carried out by media, academia or private groups—in order to produce desired cha ...
* Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor *
Statism In political science, statism is the doctrine that the political authority of the state is legitimate to some degree. This may include economic and social policy, especially in regard to taxation and the means of production. While in use s ...
*
Too big to fail "Too big to fail" (TBTF) and "too big to jail" is a theory in banking and finance that asserts that certain corporations, particularly financial institutions, are so large and so interconnected that their failure would be disastrous to the great ...
*
Welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...


References

{{reflist Libertarian terms Political ideologies Political neologisms Political terminology of the United States Political slurs Conservatism in the United States Right-wing politics in the United States