In reaction to Barack Obama’s expansion of the federal government, Dennis Prager in 2009 developed the saying, "The Bigger the Government, the Smaller the Citizen." He wrote Sept. 1, 2009:
Those of us who oppose a massive increase in the role the national government plays in health care ("ObamaCare") do so because we fear the immense and unsustainable national debt it would incur and because we are certain that medical care in America would deteriorate. But there is a bigger reason most of us oppose it: We believe that the bigger the government becomes, the smaller the individual citizen becomes.
…Not only does bigger government teach people not to take care of themselves, it teaches them not to take of others. Smaller government is the primary reason Americans give more charity and volunteer more time per capita than do Europeans living in welfare states. Why take care of your fellow citizen, or even your family, when the government will do it for you?
This preoccupation with self includes foreign policy: Why care about, let alone risk dying for, another country's liberty? That is the view of the world's left. That is why conservative governments are far more supportive of the war efforts in Iraq or Afghanistan than left-wing governments of the same country. The moment the socialists won in Spain, they withdrew all their forces from Iraq. The new center-left government in Japan has promised to stop helping the war effort in Afghanistan.
Republican politicians such as John Boehner, speaker of the House, and Congressman David Dreier took up the phrase.
On July 25, 2011, Boehner responded to President Obama's nationwide speech on the budget deficit: "You know, I’ve always believed, the bigger government, the smaller the people. And right now, we have a government so big and so expensive it’s sapping the drive of our people and keeping our economy from running at full capacity."
In a May 14, 2012 three hour show with Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt said: "At the Baltimore retreat of the National Republican Congressional Committee [in 2009], Dennis gave this big speech. I had to follow him. I’ve now learned go before Dennis, don’t follow Dennis. And so he gave this big speech, standing ovation, he had turned around like Beethoven, couldn’t see that they were standing, I had to poke him and say turn around and look at the audience. And what brought them to their feet was the saying the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen…"
"I saw grown men…now the hardest-bitten, the most cynical, the toughest to reach audience in the world is an audience of radio program directors and general managers. They are absolutely cynical about talk show hosts, because that’s all they ever deal with. And most of them, not Dennis or me, are prima donnas, and they are very difficult to deal with. And so when you get a whole bunch of them, a hundred of them in a room, it’s a tough audience. It may be the toughest audience, because they’ve heard every shtick, they’ve seen us for years, there’s nothing we can do or say to get them to actually listen to us. They’re just ah, it’s Prager, it’s Hewitt, it’s Bennett, it’s Gallagher, it’s Medved. They just turn us…it’s Pastore, whatever. However, the last time we were together at a Salem general managers meeting, reduced to tears by my friend Dennis Prager, because he talked about why he is so much a fan of this radio network and of Christians…"
June 10, 2010 at the Ronald Reagan Memorial Library, Dennis said: “He was the first one to make me aware that the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. That’s my motto but that’s his sentiment. He made me aware that this is not merely an economic difference between left and right but a philosophical and moral difference. It makes worse people, big government.”
April 6, 2011, Dennis said: “I’ll never forget when I was a kid [nine years old]. There was a man who was a high school math teacher, Mr. Joe Salts. What a sweet man. A member of the synagogue. He was hit by a hit-and-run driver on the West Side highway. He was blinded. The synagogue took care of this man for the rest of his life.
“The impact it made on me watching my father have people over to the house to see how much will you give, how much will you give. I have tears in my eyes. But as the state gets bigger, he just applies at some agency and has a bureaucrat take down the details.”
“Here’s another victim of the big state in terms of goodness because they say, why should I take care of my neighbor? The government will.
“This man blinded in the auto accident. The man was a member of the synagogue. The biggest thing DeTocqueville noted was how many free associations Americans made. Because the government was weak, people had strong civil society.
“I remember being a member of the Simi Valley Rotary Club. It was all men. They would get together every week. These guys, almost none of whom were wealthy, they were hard-working middle class. And you know what they devoted every meeting to? What charity they would engage in. But as government takes over more and more of charitable work, what need do you have for these charities? But we need people to join societies. The bigger the government, the more atomized the society.”
May 1, 2012 at the Reagan Foundation, Dennis said: “His famous sentence, ‘Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem’, proved to me that one line can change a life. A great idea can be encapsulated in one line.”
Is it true that the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen? For example, on March 13, 2023, the US Defense Department noted: “On March 9, 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration submitted to Congress a proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Budget request of $842 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD), an increase of $26 billion over FY 2023 levels and $100 billion more than FY 2022.”
If the defense budget were half as much, would American citizens be bigger? If so, how? I don’t see it. If the defense budget were twice as big, would American citizens be smaller? If so, how? I don’t see it.
American states spent $538 billion on education in 2022. How would American citizens be smaller or bigger if the states spent half as much or twice as much?
Public restrooms in the United States tend to be poor, nasty, brutish and rare. If instead they were lavish and plentiful, would American citizens be smaller? If they provided thick luxurious toilet paper instead of the cheapest kind, how would American citizens be smaller? How are we enlarged by reduced spending on public infrastructure? If we spent twice as much on public parks or public roads, how would American citizens be smaller? If we had nicer airports, nicer public transport, how exactly would America citizens be smaller? If Americans had Medicare for all like all other first world countries, how would we be smaller? If we spent twice as much on law enforcement and had an accompanying rise in public safety, how would we be smaller? If we doubled prison sentences for violent crime, and therefore spent twice as much on such prisons, how would we be smaller? I have spent about 12 years of my life (as of 2023) in Australia, which has more lavish welfare spending than America. Australians don’t seem to be smaller than Americans. They have different values. While Americans venerate freedom, Aussies venerate fairness. Why is one value inherently superior to the other?
As a conservative, I love the sound of Prager’s maxim, but it doesn’t stand up to examination.
Dennis wrote: “Those of us who oppose a massive increase in the role the national government plays in health care (“ObamaCare”) do so because we fear the immense and unsustainable national debt it would incur and because we are certain that medical care in America would deteriorate.” Medical care in America has changed in America because of Obamacare, but has it deteriorated? Are Americans noticeably smaller because of Obamacare? Obamacare cost the federal government $1.683 trillion for the first ten years. If it had only cost $300 million, would Americans be bigger? If it had cost $4 trillion, would Americans be smaller? A 2020 academic analysis of the full cost of the 2003 Iraq invasion put the figure at $1.922 trillion. If the war had turned a profit, would Americans be bigger? If the war had cost twice as much, would Americans be smaller?
If the American government housed all of its citizens and insured that all of its streets were safe and clean, would Americans be diminished by that?
Dennis wrote in 2009: “Here are five reasons why bigger government makes less impressive people. 1. People who are able to take care of themselves and do so are generally better than people who are able to take care of themselves but rely on others.”
We could hire our own police and build our own roads and privately raise funds for a national defense, but it is more efficient to do it through government. How are people worse because of government roads and defense? A man who does zero housework but earns a million dollars a year relies on other people to take care of many parts of his life for him. How is he worse for doing what he does best instead of vacuuming, shopping, and tending to children?
Dennis wrote: “Even if one believes, as the left does by definition, that the ideal society is one in which the state takes care of as many of our needs as possible, one must acknowledge that this has deleterious effects on many, if not most, citizens’ moral character. The moment one acknowledges that the more one takes care of oneself, the more developed is his or her character, one must acknowledge that a bigger state diminishes its citizens’ characters.”
If you concentrate on doing the things you do best in life and rely on others to do things you comparatively do less well, how is your moral character diminished by that? If you rely on the state to provide parks, police, roads, and schools, how are you morally diminished? As is typical with his public pronouncements, Prager makes assertions but he does not propose testable hypotheses.
“The essence of good character is to care of oneself…” How is one not taking care of oneself if you leave much of life to government or to your spouse or to your community while you focus on other things?
“The more people come to rely on government, the more they develop a sense of entitlement…”
If you rely on police to enforce the law, instead of hiring your own police, are you bad? If you rely on the government to provide roads and parks, what bad things happen to you?
“First, the more one feels entitled, the less one believes he has to work for anything. Why work hard if I can look to the state to give much of what I need, and, increasingly, much of what I want? Second, the more one feels entitled, the less grateful one feels. This is obvious: The more one expects to be given, the less one is grateful for what one is given. Third, the more entitled and the less grateful one feels, the angrier one becomes. The opposite of gratitude is not only ingratitude, it is anger. People who do not get what they think they are entitled to become angry.”
If you feel entitled to roads or parks or defense, whether it comes from individuals, a community or the government, how does it follow that you don’t need to do anything in exchange? If you make deals with people that in exchange for you providing X, they will provide Y, do you not need to work? If a society makes a collective deal that they will jointly provide certain goods and services, persons will have to work to fund that. If public goods and services are lavish or poor, how exactly are people made bigger or smaller by that? When I am in Australia, I notice that by and large, public facilities are cleaner and nicer than they are in America. Australians aren’t noticeably angrier than Americans, in fact, they seem to be happier.
“One of the effects of the welfare state on vast numbers of European citizens is disdain for work. This is in keeping with Marx’s view of utopia as a time when people will work very little and devote their large amount of non-working time writing poetry and engaging in other such lofty pursuits. Work is not regarded by the left as ennobling. It is highly ennobling in the American value system, however.”
Americans, by and large, work longer hours than Europeans. How exactly are Americans ennobled by that? In my adult life, I’ve had periods where I worked longer than average hours and other times when I’ve worked fewer than average hours. To whatever extent hard work ennobled me, it is not exactly clear. I know many people who work hard and work long hours. I’m not clear on how they would be less noble if they devoted more time to friends and family.
“Along with disdain for work, one witnesses among Western Europeans a preoccupation with not working. Vacation time has become a moral value among many Europeans. There have been riots in countries like France merely over working hours. In Sweden and elsewhere, more and more workers take more and more time off from work, knowing they will be paid anyway. In Germany and elsewhere, it is against the law to keep one’s store open after a certain hour, lest that give that store owner an income advantage and thereby compel a competing store to stay open longer as well.”
I see strengths and weaknesses in the various approaches to life. I don’t see how it is clear that the American way is inherently and universally superior. How are citizens rendered smaller or bigger by government regulations about shop hours and minimum vacation times? Australians all get a minimum of a month holiday a year. How are they made smaller by that?
“Not only does bigger government teach people not to take care of themselves, it teaches them not to take of others. Smaller government is the primary reason Americans give more charity and volunteer more time per capita than do Europeans living in welfare states. Why take care of your fellow citizen, or even your family, when the government will do it for you?”
If you vote for government to tax you more to provide social services instead of your giving charity and volunteering, why is that inferior?
“This preoccupation with self includes foreign policy: Why care about, let alone risk dying for, another country’s liberty? That is the view of the world’s left. That is why conservative governments are far more supportive of the war efforts in Iraq or Afghanistan than left-wing governments of the same country. The moment the socialists won in Spain, they withdrew all their forces from Iraq. The new center-left government in Japan has promised to stop helping the war effort in Afghanistan.”
From the perspective of 2023, it seems like those who wanted out of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were more right than those who wanted to stay in.
“Of course, there are fine idealistic individuals on the left, and selfish individuals on the right. But as a rule, bigger government increases the number of angry, ungrateful, lazy, spoiled and self-centered individuals. Which is why some of us believe that increased nationalization of health care is worth shouting about. And even crying over.”
According to Wikipedia (checked on April 20, 2023, the following governments spent the lowest percentage of their GDP (the following list is in ascending spending order): Somalia, Turkmenistan, Haiti, Venezuela, Sudan, Iran, Equatorial Guinea, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Yemen, Guinea, Nigeria, Guatemala. How many Americans wish their country operated more like these countries? How many Americans would think citizens of these countries are so much bigger and more impressive than Americans?
The only countries that have distinctly lower government spending than the US that Americans might like are Singapore, Taiwan, Costa Rica, Ireland, Peru. How many Americans would consider these countries dramatically superior to their own?
Here are countries that spend more on government as a percentage of GDP than the United States, listed in ascending order of government spending as a percentage of GDP: Norway, Latvia, Cyprus, Estonia, Malta, Canada, Maldives, Montenegro, New Zealand, Brazil, Luxembourg, Serbia, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, Netherlands, Vanuatu, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Croatia, Portugal, Tonga, Iceland, Slovenia, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, France, Ukraine.
According to the 2023 World Happiness Report, the ten happiest countries are, in descending order: Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Israel, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and New Zealand. All of them have bigger governments than the United States.
On their Aug. 2, 2022 show, Prager’s Youtube cohost inadvertently gave a good rebuttal to his claim that the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. Julie Hartman said, “I was driving up to Starbucks and I thought… that the road is paved and I don’t have to worry about getting shot, I can go to a Starbucks and I don’t have to worry that my drink is contaminated, every step we take, we are so lucky.”
June 2, 2022, Dennis said: "Reagan changed me with one sentence. 'Government is not the solution, it's the problem.' That is what made me a Republican. Everything resides on small government. In the 20th Century, 100 million civilians were murdered. Who murdered them? In every case but Rwanda, big government."
In the Mishna, Rabbi Chanina, the deputy High Priest, said: “Pray for the welfare of the government (lit., monarchy), for if not for its fear, a person would swallow his fellow live.” Big government kills people, but in the absence of big government, we return to the state of nature where life tends to be “nasty, brutish and short.” Without a strong government, people devour each other.
For the challenge of crime, courts, public schools, highways, parks, passports, as well as food and drink and air and water and driving safety, government is the solution. How else would you enforce standards? What countries that don’t operate police, courts, highways, parks and passports would you like to emulate? When Dennis said, 'Everything resides on small government', what did he mean? What exactly resides on small government?
ChatGPT says: Prager’s slogan is rhetoric, not a testable law. “Bigger government” sometimes shrinks citizens (when it replaces personal/associational responsibility or strangles initiative), and sometimes enlarges them (when it expands safety, capability, and coordination that individuals cannot achieve alone). It depends on what the state spends on, how it’s designed, and how competent it is.
Use this lens:
Separate state capacity from state scope
Capacity = the government’s ability to do things well (crime control, courts, clean water, infrastructure). More capacity typically enlarges citizens by lowering background risk and transaction costs.
Scope = how many domains the state takes over. More scope can either crowd out family/civic responsibility or complement it depending on program design.
Distinguish public goods from personal substitutes
Public goods (defense, courts, roads, disease control, air/water, passports, safe public toilets) raise everyone’s capability set. Bigger here usually makes citizens bigger—safer, freer, more productive.
Personal substitutes (overly paternalistic income supports with weak work incentives, blanket rent controls that freeze mobility, licensing that blocks entry) can make citizens smaller if they reduce agency, work, or experimentation.
Design > size
Programs that preserve agency (earned benefits, wage subsidies, work search, time limits, cash + coaching), lever private/civic effort (public–private matching, school choice with guardrails, chartering space for mutual-aid), and pay for outcomes avoid the crowd-out Prager worries about.
Programs that make help automatic, unconditional, and permanent in domains where people can self-provide create dependency traps.
Now your specific hypotheticals:
• Defense outlays halved or doubled: little direct “citizen size” effect except via security and taxes. If baseline deterrence is already strong, extra dollars don’t enlarge citizens; if under-spending invites predation, citizens shrink fast. It’s a security production-function question, not a morality one.
• Education spend halved or doubled: depends on quality, targeting, and accountability. More dollars that buy teacher quality, curriculum rigor, early-childhood gains, and good school governance enlarge citizens. More dollars into weak incentives and bureaucracy don’t.
• Public restrooms/parks/roads/airports/transit upgraded: these are classic public goods. Better, cleaner, safer amenities enlarge citizens by freeing time/attention, improving health/productivity, and broadening opportunity sets.
• Medicare-for-all: if it reduces medical bankruptcy, improves risk-pooling and preventive care without crushing innovation or access, it enlarges citizens (greater freedom to move jobs/start firms). If it degrades access or innovation, it could shrink them. It’s implementation-sensitive (pricing, queues, reimbursement, competition).
• More police and safer streets: safety is an enabling good. Effective, accountable policing enlarges citizens (especially the poor). Overbroad criminalization or abusive enforcement shrinks them. Again: competence and constraints.
• Doubling prison sentences: marginal deterrence beyond a point is low; incapacitation rises but so do fiscal costs and collateral damage (family breakdown, future employability). Net effect can shrink citizens if communities are hollowed out. Smart trade: swift/certain sanctions > long sentences; invest in clearance rates, not just terms.
• Australia/Scandinavia vs U.S.: high-state systems with high competence, social trust, and strong labor-market attachment can produce citizens who are not “smaller” by any serious metric (health, safety, happiness, civic order). This falsifies the universal claim embedded in Prager’s line.
Where Prager does have a point (in certain designs):
Moral hazard and crowd-out can be real in cash/benefit programs that sever the link between effort and reward.
Regulatory accretion can smother entry, raise prices, and reduce experimentation (occupational licensing, zoning, NIMBY rules).
Bureaucratic substitution can displace vibrant associational life if the state tries to be the only helper rather than a platform for many helpers.
What to measure if we want “bigger/smaller citizen” to mean something testable:
Agency: labor-force participation, business formation, intergenerational mobility.
Virtue/prosociality: volunteering, charitable giving plus tax-based social spending (total social effort), rule compliance.
Trust/safety: crime rates, institutional trust, corruption perception.
Capabilities: health-adjusted life expectancy, educational attainment, time freed from drudgery/commute.
Dynamism: internal migration, patenting/startups, housing affordability (elastic supply).
A cleaner version of the slogan that survives contact with evidence:
“Bad government makes smaller citizens; good government makes bigger ones. Size is downstream of purpose, design, and competence.”
So when Dennis says “everything resides on small government,” translate it as a moral preference (valorizing self-reliance and voluntary association) rather than an empirical law. Empirically, capable government that supplies high-leverage public goods and enforces good rules enlarges citizens; incapable or overreaching government shrinks them. The task isn’t to make the state small or big—it’s to make it useful, bounded, and excellent.
