Government needs to be however damn big it needs to be. The important thing is that it works. Which takes these ignorant cynics who keep saying "government can't do anything right" to stfu and get busy helping the rest of us make government do things right.
Bingo. Those who preach that low taxes necessarily equates with "high quality of life" upset me. It simply doesn't work that way.
I remember when President Reagan first took office. He said he was going to cut down on the size of American government. However, the bureaucracy actually mushroomed under his watch. Even Reagan didn't stop "big government".
The big difference is those who rabidly preach "the less government, the better" have been ruining government, in effect forcing a fulfillment of their own prophecy.
What we need is effective government. The government does have a role in the prosperity of America. It's not just the free market by itself that can make America prosper (as was shown by the home mortgage crisis that is still spinning out of control, leading even the Bush administration to call for increased oversight -- well, duh -- that's what should have been installed in the first place).