My point is, conservative gov'ts are just as greedy for power and budget as liberal ones. More, maybe, depending on what you call 'liberal'. They're politicians, they measure their self-worth by the size of their budgets and the number of their underlings. Conservatives no less than liberals. The Department of Homeland Security is a prime example- as you say, it's redundantcy and overlapping and that can never lead to efficiency.
Also, I'm a Canadian liberal, where the socialists and 'progressives' have their own party, the NDP (New Democratic Party). This makes my understanding of the term slightly different from yours. For example, I support the Canadian health insurance model but do not agree with seatbelt laws, motorcycle and bicycle helmet laws, anti-smoking laws (I don't smoke), anti almost anything laws. There needs to be a damned good reason for something to be illegal and just that people shouldn't do it isn't enough. Drugs are the biggest example.
Drugs are a fantastic example! Most drug use, I think, is more like the beer and wine sort with the Scotch and brandy sort closely following.
These are regulated with age limitations, here in Indiana, and penalties are levied for the results of the actions where the use is not appropriate like driving. Of course, Mother Nature seems to find ways to punish idiots, but that punishment seems to wash over those near the idiotic behavior as well.
Prescription Drugs that modify body systems, physical and mental, are also well regulated, but abused.
Why the regulation of the Schedule One drugs is binary, or even how the drugs got on Schedule One in the first place, is a mystery to me. Same with how one product, Snickers, is subject to sales tax while another, Ding Dongs, is not. Different topic.
Regarding the growth of Governmental programs, the first reason is that there are no budget limits. Out of money? Print more!
The pencil necked morons in our bureaucracies prop up their dickless self images with larger staffs. The irony of that word choice is not entirely accidental.
In the USA, the parties are Republican and Democrat. Neither party understands what a budget is. It is a plan by which success is measured. Achieving a budget is the standard, not a goal. A budget can only be achieved when a group of serious, talented professionals are working as a team, exerting great effort and overcoming great difficulties.
Nobody in our government likes to work as a part of a team, is a serious professional, wants to exert great effort in this pursuit or want to overcome difficulties. They are all party minions working to increase the power and reach of their own political party and have no reason or intention of ever saving any money or conforming to a budget.
The people in our government are empty suits who like to project their image of power by spending more, having larger staffs to boss around and are gifted rationalizers who can explain failure with less effort than plan and achieve success. This could well be because planning and achieving success in a budgetary sense is something they have only rarely had the need to practice.
Their bosses are the same people, but less accountable and magnified.
To your example of wanting publicly paid healthcare with no regulation of personal behavior, if you want to have the general public pay for the medical care and also want to encourage the population to engage in beltless and helmutless self-maming, there is a disconnect in your thinking.
If you never want to clean up the blood after a baby cuts himself with a butcher knife, a good first step is to remove the butcher knife from the crib.
