The Long History of Limited Government

In the blog below, I detail the political philosophy of the US Founding Fathers with regard to their unanimous desire to see limited government power.

Ronald Reagan said that we're one generation away from losing our freedom if our values and beliefs are not taught to the new generation.  Here's the full quote:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

Limited government has been the norm for the vast majority of America's history.  Then about 1913, the Federal income tax was initiated. ( It had been struck down previously as unconstitutional)  This means that for most of US history, the federal government was so small that it existed on excise and other minor taxes on commerce.  Even after World War II, during which Federal government spending became 50% of the economy, it again shrank to 9% of the US gross domestic product after the war (late 1940's).  

Current Government spending and it's trajectory are not only out-of-control at 25% of GDP,  but totally at odds with the vast historical experience of this country--a country where free market capitalism, small government and low taxes on income and capital built the largest and most successful economy the world has ever seen.  It wasn't many years ago that the US economy was 5 times larger than the 2nd largest (Japan).   That's how successful we were!   We became a hyper-power.

Apparently we want to change all that and become a stagnated state with ruinous national debt that can only be repaid with inflated dollars by our children?  We want more ruined populations dependent on government programs?  Apparently so, because we don't know our own history, we are satisfied with a crony-government, crony-capitalist state for sale to the politically connected or highest bidder?  Well, that's where we're at right now.  That's what you ALWAYS get with big government in a nation as large as the USA!