[Alessio]

The problem of a big government doesn't lie with the leaders itself. The problem lies with with government officials, who are just regular people who do not have any insightful vision on the policy they are carrying out. If these people are allowed to intervene in people's lives then - with all good intentions - they just won't stop doing that. It will become their daily business to make up new bullshit at the cost of your freedom to keep themselves busy.

In the Netherlands this has become a major problem in my eyes, where local authorities try to steer everything they can to improve our way of life. Most regulations can actually be seen as an improvement in itself, but bit by bit our freedom to do something wrongly is just being taken away, resulting in very little freedom, as you can only do what your neighbour, who happends to be a goverment official, thinks is right.

Also in other areas officials tend to do more then suitable:
With all good intentions local authorities keep subsidizing projects that they perceive as constructive. Most likely they subsidize projects that are unprofitable for a reason, but hey, the official likes it. The government official just subsidize it because it's his job. It's not his concern how this affects the taxburden or how many projects are currently running. He has proberbly even forgotten why the people gave him his right to subsidize certain projects in the first place.

Of course the resulting giant taxburden has to be distributed fairly. Everytime more money is needed they invent a new fair progressive tax to spare the less fortunate. Personally I have nothing against progressive taxes, however, when they keep inventing new progressive taxes the burden for people with a normal wage can become so high that they can actually end up having less purchasing power then people with lower wages. I'm not even kidding. I've worked with handicapped people and I have actually helped some calculate how many hours they should work for the most profitable results.

The same thing applies to rules they make up affecting other parts of our lives or businesses aswell of course. If the authorities have the freedom to do as they please, then they will do as they please.

So for the abovementioned reasons it's better to keep the government as constrained as possible, to keep the idiots from influencing every detail of your life and casually taking everything too far. This does not necessarily has to mean you can't have a big government, but it has to be well defined.

When considering which responsibilities should be given to the government you have to keep in mind that the government is per definition less inventive then the private market. For quality of services you do not have to look at the government. Noone is responsible for the products they deliver or the production proces and that reflects in the costs. And just like a normal business they sometimes invent new products that noone wants, but as they have an infinite budget this doesn't lead to the market financially punishing the people responsible for their stupidity.

The only thing in which the government excels is increasing the accessibility of services. Unlike the government, the free market aims at profit maximization and can't always allow products to be accessable, If you want accessable healthcare and/or education then a big government is the way to go. Accessability at the cost of efficiency. If accessibility isn't your aim, then the private market is the way to go.