It's understandable that conservatives don't get how liberals and conservatives talk past each other about the size the government should be. It's the obsession of modern conservatism, and in their assumption we must love whatever conservatives hate, they assume liberals see big government as the ultimate goal. It's hard to disabuse them of that notion, and communicate a simple concept: liberals don't care. Maybe it's that streak of pragmatism liberals have but which modern conservatives have managed to purge from themselves, but it seems obvious the government should be big enough to do what you want it to do. Depends on the issue at hand, doesn't it? That part needs to get bigger, and this part smaller. Liberals presumably won't have complete agreement amongst ourselves on which part is which, but at least we least can look at the problems, the resources, and the options for a fact-based discussion.
Sometimes I wonder if a peek in their garages would reveal pretty small toolboxes, containing just saws, "Because wrenches are socialist and I won't have them! I did once use a pliers once, but I've since repented".
But try to understand, conservatives, the abstract correct size of government, devoid of all context, is an irrelevant non-issue for us. You know, like poverty is for you.
So I don't care if the budget is bigger or smaller. I don't care if revenues have risen or fallen by X percentage and isn't that enough for you liberals at long last? I don't care what the level of spending is apart from what it actually accomplishes.
I do care about history though.
So I'm with Josh Marshall of TPM on this: I get annoyed at how conservatives, though not just those throwing around the name "constitutional conservatives", fetishize the US Constitution and deify the founding fathers while knowing bugger-all about either.
At the end of the day, though, the federal constitution was created to battle and overpower the political ideals and devotion to limited, weak government that today's Tea Partiers and 'constitutional conservatives' embody. The history leaves no other possible conclusion. The central belief of the men who spearheaded the constitution was that only a strong central government could make America great and strong and thus safe. There's a lot in those ideas that today's liberals would not find welcoming at all. And the anti-Federalist, anti-constitutionalist strain in American history, which the Paulites and Tea Partiers of today embody, has played an important role as a counter-force. But the constitution, the aims, beliefs and goals of the constitution-makers are the polar opposite of what the Rand Paul types and Tea Partiers believe.
Marshall specifically wrote about Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, and particularly Hamilton's plan to have the new federal government take over the debts of the states. Having the federal government indebted to the 18th century's investor class meant that these men now had a big stake in the new government's success. After all, if it failed, they would never get paid. He could have also pointed out how the framers of the constitution wanted a strong central government with this sort of power because of dysfunction of the national economy, caused partly by the inability of the states to cope with their post-war debts.
That same reasoning lies behind the "commerce clause", giving the new government an ability the outgoing government lacked, the power to regulate commerce between states. Conservatives like to pretend the commerce clause is some minor thing liberals stretch beyond all recognition to let themselves do whatever we take a notion too, if they even admit that power is there (it is). We moderns might think it's bad enough that which fireworks are legal changes when we cross a state line, but the framers lived in a time when states had their individual currencies which might be accepted in another state --- might. Likely at a discount. An expansive power? Yes, and in fact that was a major impetus for a new constitution instead of just tinkering with the Articles of Confederation. Hamilton, Madison, and other supporters of the new constitution had the notion a functioning economy would be a good idea, but could not happen without a new central government of some sort having regulatory power. In terms of expansiveness, there's not much that isn't touched by commerce, and not much commerce that doesn't include some crossing of state lines.
Anyone is free to oppose letting the federal government have that sort of power, but to argue it isn't constitutional is to ignore the debates at the time it was ratified. There were Americans of the time who would have a agreed with modern conservatives that a strong federal government was a bad idea and it shouldn't have the power, but they didn't argue that's not what the proposed constitution meant. They agreed that's what it meant, and argued against it. It's much like the debate over whether the framers intended the constitution to establish a Christian country: regardless of what modern conservatives claim, their counterparts of the 18th century understood the constitution to be neutral in religion because they argued against it on those grounds.
Actually, where I really care, and it truly gets past just disagreeing about history, is when some pseudo-historical doctrine gets applied to public policy. Take the decisions of the conservative majority on the US Supreme Court to weaken our gun laws because they accept the gun lobby's interpretation of the second amendment. That's not abstract. That's worse than the minor annoyance of conservatives claiming they're the only ones who respect the Constitution. That's a specific application with specific consequences.
So believe in small government if you want. That's your right. Feel free to tear your hair out about whatever abstract obsession you choose. Just stop expecting me to tear out my hair, or even to pull my comb with particular vigor.