Philosophizing on the Size of Government

Mankiw comments on the size of government here:

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/12/crises-and-government.html

Again, I love this guy--he's one of my two favorite economists (and it's
no coincidence that the other one also has a blog).

That said, this really seems like beating a dead horse. Yes, the size
of government has grown since the 1920s. Yes, the increase in the size
of government has been permanent.

That's terrible.

But why?

Mankiw seems to imply that this increase in the size of government has
been undesirable, and if the current crisis leads to a permanent
increase in the size of government, that would be undesirable as well.
It's unclear to me why this would be the case. Do we really want to go
back to the _laissez faire_ model of political economy of the 1920s and
before? I think that most people in the US probably can agree that
things like Social Security, affordable housing, a larger military, and
greater spending on infrastructure (like highways) is good. Most people
(Ron Paul being one prominent recent example) probably don't think those
things are a waste, and most people probably wouldn't like the private
sector to take them over.

If the current crisis results in a bigger government, the _specifics_ of
such an increase will probably include things like (again) greater
spending on infrastructure maintenance (which God only knows we need),
greater spending on green technologies (I have a hard time faulting this
policy expenditure) and a national health care system that (most likely)
will be half as expensive as the one we have now.

I have a hard time faulting _that_ increase in the size of government.

"Big Government" means "Bad Government" to many conservatives. There
are things that government doesn't do very well. But the government of
the United States is pretty good at doing an awful lot of things.

Though in closing, I should add that I mostly voted Libertarian in
Colorado's county and municipal races. I would have voted for the
Prohibition Party, except they only had a presidential candidate, and I
wanted to vote for Obama.

I realize that's a complete contradiction. I feel no need to resolve my
cognitive dissonance.