Republicans "smaller government" lie exposed!

Trump’s VP pick Mike Pence once wrote in defense of cigarettes, “A government big enough to go after smokers, is big enough to go after you.”

Scary stuff that plays to the paranoia of an overreaching government we all know can’t be trusted.

Of course it’s an odd way to make your case, bashing government for saving people’s lives, and then defending cancer causing cigarettes and second hand smoke. But Pence did just that.

Republicans have a convoluted way of defining “big government.”

The GOP is really talking about big liberal government. Government doesn’t get smaller under Republicans. If anything it gets a lot bigger, adding piles of rules and regulations meant to reverse laws designed to protect Americans.

Laws protecting drinking water are reversed with stacks of new regulations that only protect polluters and high capacity wells. The same is true of health care and tort reform, where insurer profits take precedent over public health and medical errors aren’t reduced but instead are shielded from punishment.

This perfect example shines a light on Paul Ryan's recent take on "small government." Salon:

The Supreme Court released its 5-3 decision blocking unfair and unconstitutional abortion regulations in Texas: “The plurality added that ‘[u]nnecessary health regulations that have the purpose or effect of presenting a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion impose an undue burden on that right.’”

One might ask, “Unnecessary regulations? Where have I heard that before?” If one scrolls up just few tweets on Ryan’s Twitter page, the answer appears: “We need to take a smart approach that cuts down on needless regulations while making the rules we do need more efficient and effective … That’s from Ryan’s economic portion of “A Better Way,” the recently released policy platform.

The speaker never intended women to have safer abortions … He did not want there to be abortions at all … the GOP-led Texas legislature imposed regulations so severe on clinics that many were forced to close.

Imagine even briefly that these regulations were on businesses that, say, sold crutches and wheelchairs. Imagine that they forced many of those businesses to close. It isn’t difficult to imagine how different the post-decision tweet would have been then.

They claim in one breath to be opposed to government intervention and regulation and then, in the next, decry the removal of regulations. This isn’t principled governing, and it is a glaring inconsistency that must be addressed.

But not so small government Republicans aren’t shy about where government needs to be much, much bigger; national security.

While Americans will have limited access to their small government at home, Republicans will expand an American global government throughout the world with preemptive invasions and a military presence everywhere. Republicans haven’t kept this part of their plan a secret either, they want to expand the military budget and take out potential global threats on a whim.