The ’90s are back. Influencers on TikTok are wearing crop tops, ’90s entertainment franchises such as Mortal Kombat are being rebooted, and “the era of big government” is back in the news.
But though President Bill Clinton declared “the era of big government is over” during that decade, a time when the government actually saw budget surpluses rather than eye-popping deficits, the era of big government seems very much back on the heels of President Joe Biden’s address to Congress spelling out a long list of pricey policy proposals.
Democrats have calculated that voters will not punish them much for an aggressive push to spend trillions on their wish list. In the short run, they might not be wrong. The Pew Research Center has long tracked whether the public would rather “bigger government with more services” or “smaller government with fewer services,” an imperfect question wording to be sure but one that has historically favored small government, particularly during the 1990s.
But the massive preference for the small government of the ’90s has given way over the last two decades to a much more narrowly split country.
Ask people if they think government is doing too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses or if government should do more, and for much of the last 30 years, “government is doing too much” reigned supreme. But not so, today. By a 54 to 41 margin, people say they want the government to do more.
So, “big government” isn’t the big boogeyman it seems to have been in days gone by for most voters. But there are two key challenges Democrats will face when pushing trillion-dollar package after trillion-dollar package through the Washington policymaking machine.
The first is how you pay for all this. Deficit financing isn’t of interest to voters with renewed anxiety about the issue popping up in polls, including a recent survey showing it as a top-three issue for voters alongside crime and healthcare costs.
People want spending, they don’t want to pay for it, and they don’t want the deficit to go up. Picking two out of those three is easy. The only way you can get all three of these choices is by taxing someone else. That’s why Biden and team talk about higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy, even though they likely know these hikes are apt to harm competitiveness and curb economic growth.
The second problem Democrats will face is that the public doesn’t trust the government to do a good job at much of anything. There’s not a lot of trust that the government is good at things. It’s a “the food was terrible, and such small portions!” dynamic. Despite being open to bigger government, nearly three-quarters say they are dissatisfied with how the government works, a record-high figure in the two decades Gallup has asked the question. Two-thirds are dissatisfied with the size and power of the government. None of our three branches of government get even close to having the confidence of the majority.
People get that government isn’t great or working well but are still open to the idea that government can solve problems so long as they think someone else is paying.
If you are frustrated that this incoherent position persists, you might need to blame the GOP’s strategists and spokespeople.
Republicans have not yet settled into a cohesive message in opposition, but there’s one strategy that is likely to be a dud: simply railing against “big government.” For a working mother who has been overwhelmed by a year in which she hasn’t had access to child care, what is the Republican response to her plight? She may not think the government is great at what it does, but at least it’s something.
There are two better strategies Republicans can employ. The first is to have an agenda that centers on middle- and working-class people and the challenges they face. To take the child care example, perhaps it means expanding child tax credits so that parents can decide whether to spend money on the type of child care that’s right for them or allowing one parent more flexibility to step back from the workforce, whichever choice works best for their family. Issue by issue, Republicans need to be equipped with these answers.
The second is to focus on the economic impacts of rolling back pre-COVID-19 economic policies and spending too much. Inflation hasn’t been a major political issue during my lifetime, but my data suggest that inflation and its attendant rising cost of living are an emerging real worry for many. Economists are increasingly wary that inflation is returning. The changes the Biden plans are proposing will have an effect on the economy, and Republicans should be clear about why they think those effects will be bad for middle- and working-class people.
Democrats are gambling that the era of big government is back. Republicans need to provide a better alternative.
