The False Promise of Big Government: How Washington Helps the Rich and Hurts the Poor

by Patrick M. Garry

The debate over the size and scope of the federal government has raged since the New Deal. So why have opponents of big government so rarely made political headway?

Because they fail to address the fundamental issue.

Patrick M. Garry changes that in this short, powerful book. Garry, a law professor and political commentator, debunks the myth that only government can help the average American survive and prosper in today's world.

The truth, he reveals, is that big government often hurts the very people it purports to the poor, the working class, and the middle class. And the problem is worse than that. He shows that big government actually props up the rich, the powerful, and the politically connected.

Garry demonstrates that opponents of big government rely on arguments that are true but fail to address the heart of the issue. Yes, massive government programs are wasteful and impose huge economic costs on America, and yes, many of them violate constitutional provisions. But in focusing on economic and constitutional arguments, proponents of limited government cede the moral high ground to progressives.

The truth is that those who claim to speak for the "little guy" actually push for policies that harm the most vulnerable in society. And it is just as true that proponents of limited government don't ignore the working and middle classes but in fact are trying to free those individuals from a government that acts against their interests.

In just one hundred pages, The False Promise of Big Government lays out everything you need to know about why big government fails and how to overcome it at last.

Genres: Politics

112 pages, Paperback

Published October 9, 2017

About the author

From the time he began appreciating the great novels, Patrick Garry became intrigued with the imaginative artistry and insights of fiction. He wrote dozens of short stories before beginning his first novel, which took years to write. Since then, he has published seven more novels, and is currently working on a new novel about a disgraced lawyer who finds himself filling in at his sick father’s diner while defending a case that will unexpectedly end up on the front pages of the national newspapers.

The host of a national book review radio program has called Patrick Garry the best undiscovered writer in America. But Patrick Garry is unique in another respect. He writes about themes and ideas that are often absent in the works of contemporary American novelists.

Garry’s novels reaffirm life and the struggle of individuals to live their lives in ways that rise above mere materialism and the stranglehold of destructive temptations. In A Bridge Back, he writes about characters who never quite lose their desire for redemption, no matter how much guilt they feel for the mistakes of the past. Indeed, as the main character in A Bridge Back discovers, the past, no matter how tragic, is not to be feared. Confronting the past can lead to a discovery of truth, which can then lead to the only true freedom. And once the enslavement to fear is ended, a rediscovery of love becomes possible.

In A Bomb Shelter Romance, Garry portrays America as a place that continually changes—and in doing so, continually offers new opportunities for individuals to find what they have always sought to find. This story, of a family ridiculed as it builds the last bomb shelter of the Cold War, reveals how humor and joy can triumph over even the most sudden and traumatic tragedies. The O’Neals are a quintessential American family, if for no other reason than their ability to laugh at their often unenviable state. Yet, as the narrator acknowledges, sometimes you find love when you’re doing absolutely everything to discourage it.

The characters populating In the Shadow of War are nobly (and sometimes even irrationally) trying to make the best of a tough situation. They have been brought together by the narrator’s grandfather, an irrepressible dreamer who still hopes to turn the tiny little ghost town his ancestors once founded into a thriving community. According to the grandfather, the antidote to a past of disappointment is a more intense dream for the future. It is when he is surrounded by the dreams of his grandfather during the summer of his eighteenth year, when the narrator feels guilt ridden over the death of his mentally handicapped brother, that the narrator discovers the reality of love and the beauty of people who decide to let their dreams, rather than their disappointments, define them.

One of the themes Garry explores in his novels is the theme of moral relativism and the modern propensity to let political positions trump moral integrity. In The Price of Guilt, the main character learns in a very harsh way that political attitudes, no matter how publicly exalted, are no substitute for individual morality. In fact, a superficial pursuit of redemption through a seemingly noble outside goal ultimately sends the narrator to prison. The value of core moral beliefs is also reflected in Suicidal Tendencies, where the main character, in his reflexive opposition to anything traditional, discards the very morality that offers the only hope for saving him. Political positions and trendy cultural attitudes not only mask the character’s downfall, but actually end up leading him there.

Life can be simpler, and yet more heroic, than is often portrayed in the modern media, which instead can surround us by a confusion of all that can go wrong with life, rather than clarify for us what lies at the core of life—what defines it and makes it worth living. In Saving Faith, an orphan who spent his entire you

Reviews

[Kyle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Should be titled "I don't like liberals and citing my sources." I lean pretty liberal and picked it up to hear a different perspective. There was nothing in this book that sounded like a compelling argument that didn't have an obvious realistic rebuttal. At best, it gives you an idea of how a conservative mind may work, at it's worst it's terribly misleading and should not be relied upon for a realistic political statement.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frequently, arguments about big government tend to devolve into a debate in which there is a false dilemma present as well as a tendency for both parties involved, pro-big government and anti-big government, to talk past each other.  For example, the false dilemma usually presented is that the absence of big government leads to the abuse of the common person by cruel and exploitative big business and that only big government can stand against this.  Meanwhile, those who oppose big government are usually left discussing the inefficiencies and corruption involved with big government and its failures to do anything meaningful about the problems it tackles, which is viewed by some as irrelevant because the critique is said to lack heart as to the genuine concerns that are exploited by big government supporters.  This book's aim is to look at the false promise of big government without conceding anything about the opponents of big government lacking in compassion about the struggles of the ordinary person.  Instead, the book makes a strong populist attack on big government that attacks it at its most vulnerable side, the wide gulf between its utopian promises and inevitable pathetic performance.

This book is a short one at just over 100 pages and it is divided into six chapters.  The book begins with an introduction that exposes the myth of big government, namely the myth that it offers help to the poor and to outsiders while instead consistently rewarding large businesses, the immensely wealthy, and preserving cronies and insiders while making it harder for outsiders to prosper.   The author then demonstrates how this is done by showing first how big government caters to the interests of big power (1) through lobbyist efforts, among other means.  After this there is a discussion of the way that big government breeds cronyism (2) and how it is a tool of the elite to protect their interests and their control over certain segments of the economy (3).  The author discusses how big government becomes its own end (4) and is simply not able to shrink itself after having solved a problem to a high enough degree.  The author then turns to a discussion of how big government backfires (5) and tends to make problems worse rather than better, which typically is used as a justification for even more big government to reinforce failure, and how big government crowds out civil society by creating a false dilemma about who deals with problems (6).  The book then closes with a discussion about changing the debate about the supposedly compassionate nature of big government.

This book provides useful work in seeking to counteract the lure of Big Government in its exposure of the false promise that big government does what it does because it cares about the common folk.  It should be noted that a consistent populist position would require hostility not only to big government but to big business and to large centers of power in general that can be found within society, and the author manages to do this effectively in a way that may surprise some readers.  To be sure, it is easy for people to be cynical about efforts to take big government because they think that the populism is not genuine in nature, but this author definitely appears to have a strong populist aim and that is all the more surprising for being published by an organization that specializes in educational works.  By and large intellectuals and populism are not things that are assumed to work together well, and a collaboration between those two tendencies is something that strikes me as very interesting because of my own interest in the intersection between those two modes of thinking.