Americans were told thirty years ago that government was part of the problem, not the solution. Every major part of the economy such as health care, energy, transportation, food and finance was deeply troubled. Now we are ready to invite government back in to help solve the problem, but only if the price is right and the strategies are convincing (Sachs). When President Obama was elected he faced challenges that were twofold. The challenges were to capture the potential benefits of a new age government activism, while still protecting the country’s longterm fiscal health (Sachs). For decades, conservatives have been pushing for smaller government, and have consistently called for reduced social spending, less regulation, and more tax cuts. Not everyone agrees. When the financial crisis hit in the fall of 2008 and the economy began to melt down, suddenly there were calls for bigger and more active government. Many people wanted a massive federal stimulus plan to ward off an economic depression, and others demanded the widespread re-regulation of financial markets to prevent a recurrence of these problems (Douglas). Even as the economy worsen many American consoled themselves with the belief that at least we were better off than people in other rich nations. Now when comparing the U.S. with Canada, Western Europe and Japan, the news is sobering. Our child-poverty and infant-mortality rates are the highest, our life expectancy is the lowest, our budget deficit as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) is the highest, and our 15 year old children rank among the lowest on tests of math and science (Sachs). On top of this, many Democrats have argued for increased government involvement in a wide variety of areas, ranging from education and energy development to infrastructure repair and health care reform. Whether we need more government in this country really depends on the answer to three other questions. First, is there room for improvement in government programs? Have we reached the limits of what government can do in most policy areas, or could expanding these current programs produce significant added benefits for the public? Second, are any of our current social and economic problems worsening? Are we facing new and serious threats to our wellbeing? If so, this indicates that we logically need more government (Douglas). With this being said we can rely on markets and individual effort to solve these current and emerging problems? If so, then we don’t need more government. But if markets and individual initiative are not up to the task, this bolsters the case for a more collective, governmental approach. All three of these questions are complex ones, but these answers strongly indicate that we do need more government, not less, in the United States (Douglas). In the article “Women Prefer Larger Governments: Growth, Structural Transformation and Government Size” the author talks about how women believe in a larger government (Cavalcanti and Tavares). The author states that a rise in income leads to a rise in female labor force participation as the opportunity cost of staying at home and caring for the children increases. The authors also state that the higher government spending decreases the cost of performing household chores, including, but not limited to child rearing and child care, and after during a wide cross section of data for developed and developing countries it showed that higher market participation by women is positively and robustly associated with government size, and it showed that women particular prefer a larger government (Cavalcanti andTavares). In my opinion big government is a good thing, because having big government means it changes the economic structure of Gross Domestic Product (Cavalcanti and Tavares).