Maybe the state government in MS and elsewhere should not be in both the TANF and college volleyball / football businesses. TANF is the more defensible public good; a smaller MS government would likely have been able to prioritize it properly.
Jerry Ford told us that a government big enough to give us everything we want is big enough to take away everything we have.
I don't know if the size of the government matters when corruption is going on. Is there a scale?
If a smaller government is capable of governing better, I'll be all for letting Mississippi become an independent nation and not have to bother with federal programs.
Jerry's line proves my point that the scale of government is a pretty silly argument. Of course, governments can give and take things away. I mean, what the heck does the size of it matter? It's like Jerry doesn't have a clue about other forms of government, may he rest in peace.
"smaller" is this case is used as a stand-in for: local, less-complex, easier-for-individuals-to-effect. There is a point of organization below which nothing can get done because it is too small, simple, etc. This is the vicinity in which one finds Otis the Town Drunk (Andy Griffith Show, Seasons 1 through 7), who arrests and locks himself in the jail. Of course, he also lets himself out. On the opposite end of the scale is "too-big-to-notice-anything-less-than-an earthquake, hey-shouldn't-we-have-party-leaders-making-most-of-the-decisions-in-Congress" and its attendant lack of responsiveness. This is where we find ice dams on the federal office building in Key West, FL (because all federal building built that year had to have ice dams) as a relatively innocuous example and all of the politicians showing up poor and leaving rich that you comment on as much-less innocuous example. The State of MS, attempting to manage TANF and a football entertainment system grafted onto its state universities, lies somewhere on the "extra" side of median on that continuum. Which allows grifters like Favre (who is younger than I am? What?) to find opportunities like this.
It is not difficult to see, provided that one is willing to acknowledge that government is not simply what we choose to do together but what we do together because no one else can or should; principally because it involves some sort of privation / deprivation of liberty (taxes, penal law enforcement) to accomplish.
Maybe the state government in MS and elsewhere should not be in both the TANF and college volleyball / football businesses. TANF is the more defensible public good; a smaller MS government would likely have been able to prioritize it properly.
Jerry Ford told us that a government big enough to give us everything we want is big enough to take away everything we have.
Just saying.
I don't know if the size of the government matters when corruption is going on. Is there a scale?
If a smaller government is capable of governing better, I'll be all for letting Mississippi become an independent nation and not have to bother with federal programs.
Jerry's line proves my point that the scale of government is a pretty silly argument. Of course, governments can give and take things away. I mean, what the heck does the size of it matter? It's like Jerry doesn't have a clue about other forms of government, may he rest in peace.
"smaller" is this case is used as a stand-in for: local, less-complex, easier-for-individuals-to-effect. There is a point of organization below which nothing can get done because it is too small, simple, etc. This is the vicinity in which one finds Otis the Town Drunk (Andy Griffith Show, Seasons 1 through 7), who arrests and locks himself in the jail. Of course, he also lets himself out. On the opposite end of the scale is "too-big-to-notice-anything-less-than-an earthquake, hey-shouldn't-we-have-party-leaders-making-most-of-the-decisions-in-Congress" and its attendant lack of responsiveness. This is where we find ice dams on the federal office building in Key West, FL (because all federal building built that year had to have ice dams) as a relatively innocuous example and all of the politicians showing up poor and leaving rich that you comment on as much-less innocuous example. The State of MS, attempting to manage TANF and a football entertainment system grafted onto its state universities, lies somewhere on the "extra" side of median on that continuum. Which allows grifters like Favre (who is younger than I am? What?) to find opportunities like this.
It is not difficult to see, provided that one is willing to acknowledge that government is not simply what we choose to do together but what we do together because no one else can or should; principally because it involves some sort of privation / deprivation of liberty (taxes, penal law enforcement) to accomplish.