Rewinding the argument

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Nearly 50 years ago, WORLD commentator Cal Thomas interviewed a young congressional candidate—a physician by the name of Ron Paul.

Listening back today, he was struck by how little the argument over the size of government has changed.

CAL THOMAS: The French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr observed: “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

I was reminded of that when I found a videotape of an interview I conducted with congressional candidate Ron Paul in April of 1976.

The election had been delayed because of—what else?—a malfunctioning vote-counting computer.

Sound familiar?

Here’s part of that conversation.

THOMAS: We say apparent because... they’ve had a big problem with a computer down in Brazoria County.... Dr. Paul, despite that problem, will you go so far as to claim victory tonight?

PAUL: Certainly looks like it is going to be a victory. I don’t see how it could turn into anything else right now.

The computer glitch wasn’t what caught my attention.

It was what came next.

THOMAS: What do you feel was your biggest strength in this race? What appealed to the voters?

PAUL: I think there was one thing that was really, really clear cut. The issue of big government. Government is too big, and the people are fed up with it.

Ron Paul campaigned beneath a billboard showing an overweight Uncle Sam.

Its message was simple:

“Put big government on a diet.”

So I asked where he’d begin.

THOMAS: Where is the biggest fat in the government budget that you would seek to operate on first?

PAUL: The biggest is in HEW... but it’s big every place, every agency... they’re spending too much money.

HEW—Health, Education, and Welfare—became two distinct agencies. It was split into today’s Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education.

But government didn’t exactly go on a diet. In 1976, HEW accounted for a little more than six percent of the nation’s economy. Today, those two successor departments account for roughly seven.

The name changed. The organization multiplied. The government’s footprint got even bigger.

The national debt tells a similar story.

In 1976, it equaled about one-third of the American economy. Today, it’s larger than the economy itself.

That’s a much bigger change than inflation alone can explain.

Fifty years later, the names have changed.

The agencies have changed.

The dollar amounts have changed.

But the debate?

Not so much.

For WORLD, I’m Cal Thomas.

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