Wilkinson makes an important distinction between small and limited government:
The size of the budget as as percentage of output doesn’t tell you anything about the composition of spending. This is a really important point. The United States spends a lot on prisons, the military, drug law enforcement, border patrol, etc. A lot of this is the opposite of rights-respecting, and a lot of it is downright wasteful. The composition of spending is important both as a matter or morality and a matter of economic growth (which I happen to think is also a matter of morality.) Which is all to say, the fact that a government is small logically implies almost nothing about either liberty, justice or efficiency.
But not nothing surely.
The Dish 