If we start the conversation with the assumption that we can’t afford the government we have, then obviously you have to make it smaller.

I’m not sure that the case has been made, since, as noted above, using typical comparative measures between our government and others we don’t seem to be out of whack. You sure as hell cannot infer causation between the current size of the government and the current state of the economy. The only way to do that is to rewrite history in a pretty blatant and stupid way.

I would also think that calculating the collateral costs of cutting government jobs is a reasonable thing to do: what services are we going to lose, what does the job loss do to aggregate demand (and what economic outcomes that generates), what are the severance costs (so you can get a net savings number), etc… But I sense an unwillingness from the GOP to do that. I am not sure why that is. Is it because they view government workers as some sort of subhumans unworthy of any consideration? Or because they value any government activity so low that it’s cancellation is simply presumed to be a good thing? Or that they have made the promise, so thinking hard about the consequences of delivering on that promise is pointless? I don’t know.