Government's Size Should be Determined by Need

   I wonder how much I am on board with those who believe in limited government. I see reason not to proscribe artificial limits, but rather to simply suggest that government should govern whenever the need arises.
   In other words, the size of government should be determined by the needs. Artificial limits do not make for better government, but for worse.
   Rather than saying, "You cannot go beyond this point, and you cannot do more than this," let how large government gets and how much it gets involved be determined by what situations arise that need governing. If something needs to be done, do it. If you need to govern, govern, even if it means getting bigger.
   The measurement of how big government is should be equal to the measurement of how large the needs are.
   I think of a scripture from my religion. "(A)ll governments have a right to enact such laws as in their own judgments are best calculated to secure the public interest." (Doctrine and Covenants 134:5
   I think of earlier in that section, the first verse, where it says, "We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of men." That suggests there are good things to be done. It doesn't say how many good things, or limit how many there are or what they are, it only implies that when something comes up needing done, that is where government should step in, that is what government is for.
   Our nation's foremost law says the federal government is there to do the things that are required for the general welfare. That is a broad opening. That leaves the federal government authority to do a wide spectrum of things.
  The Constitution, in the Preamble, says that, "We the people, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish the Constitution for the United States of America."
   And, Article I, Section 8 says, "The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States."
  This all said, though, there remains reason for a limited federal government. We have the Tenth Amendment. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." If you put something in your highest law, you should live by it. This is in our law, and we should make every effort to give the states all governance not specified for the federal government.
   This does not limit the size of government, per se, but it does redirect much of what is done from the federal government to the state governments.
   I will now offer my humble opinion that it is not usually who conducts a program that determines whether the program is good, but it is how the program is conducted. Often, a federal agency can do as well as a state agency.
   The one value I see in local government is that it is closer to the problem, and more responsive. He who lives in a problem is more perceptive of what needs to be done than he who lives on the outside. And, he is more motivated to make the changes necessary, if he is among those who are affected.
   Other than that, if I am not mistaken, it is the program, itself, that determines whether it will succeed. It is the way you set it up. Wisdom is wisdom, regardless where it comes from. If a wise program is set up by a federal agency, it will work just as well as if it is set up by a state.