"The Bigger the Government, the smaller the people." *bump*

It means, (no disrespect to shorter persons -- think "people" as in the American people, not individuals): the more a group can advance on their own merits, without relying on the cooperation, or fiscal renumeration, from their government (or in some cases, from other people's governments, hence the lobbying troops), the bigger the lives they can lead.

Like in economics, it might be counterintuitive.
How can one be bigger when receiving less?

For that answer look around you, at how so many Americans have "grown", with government help, over the past 25 years. Did prosperity make us "bigger", or do we just have more? And maybe... we've become a smaller people, for all that.

Missing out on the finer, the rarer, the ... little things that make for a grateful heart. And a satisfying life, ultimately.


ADDED:
Ezra Klein, Size Queen?

Futher missing the point -- you don't measure the size of democracy, or free people, with a ruler -- Ezra Klein clowns: "What I’ve always believed is that the more data on your scatterplot, the better your chances of seeing a relationship. So I asked Dylan Matthews to work up a chart. He took the data from Wikipedia’s table listing the average male height in more than 60 countries and plotted each country’s height against the percent of GDP it collects in taxes. The result? A weakly, but noticeably, positive relationship between the size of government and the size of people."

So, his "scatterplots" show that the more government you have, the taller the men in your country. Hm. Nevermind causation error. Or basic logic fail. It's in the misdefining of the terms -- "bigger people" does not mean taller men, sadly.

Thus, Klein confidently concludes: "Bigger governments, in other words, mean bigger people."

Or, you might say, it just means taller men doing smaller and smaller things. Like, picking up stray balloon carcasses say. Or working hard to feed other men's offspring. Breakfast at school, even.

When we complain about "big government", you see, it's really not a height thing. It's more a families v. bureacrats thing. Who is ultimately responsible for ... the children? Might take a community to raise 'em, but it's turning out more and more, it takes a family to feed, educate and culturally clue them in to this "freedom" thing.

Rep. Boehner, when you get a free minute, please pull young Mr. Klein aside and try to explain to him what "the smaller the people" means, in terms of individual rights, responsibilities and freedoms. Still not sure if he'll get it -- it's something you live daily, in practice -- but at least we can all say we tried to help him, eh?

In other ways, the boy does prove himself capable of learning.

Ultimately, I’m not persuaded by the administration’s case here. The Affordable Care Act is an unstable platform right now. I’d prefer to wait until we see it implemented and secured before we begin basing other policy changes off of it.

Slow, slow slow -- that what comes with pretty much having an insta-closed mind and creating an insta-list to reinforce your own policy preferences -- but he's coming 'round, it seems. Sadly though, it will cost us big to "undo" these promised changes, that in reality, aren't working out as well as promised ... by the big government types, some of which includes tall men in their ranks even.

FUTHER:
Maybe Krugman can be a role model to Klein, the boy economist?

I agree with Mark Thoma that economists really need to listen to people outside their circle. Many years ago, when I wrote about doing economics, one of my principles was “Listen to the Gentiles”, meaning listen to intelligent people, even if they don’t speak your analytical language.