How did the politics of small government lead to big government bailouts?

Ronald Reagan popularized the idea of small government, which ended up being great for the top one percent of America, but has recently been shown to have some problems. This idea has influenced American politics for almost 30 years, and helped create the ineffective regulatory agencies which allowed all kinds of questionable practices to thrive in American business, especially in the world of finance. By helping create a record debt bubble, which thrived in an era of weak regulatory oversight, small government nearly ruined the global economy last fall.

However, the destructive power of small government ideology has gone unnoticed by some political leaders. To pick one, House minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) made a speech this March, in which he said that since families were suffering, "it's time for government to tighten their belts and show the American people that we 'get' it.'" As I wrote, small government is good for Boehner -- except when it comes to using taxpayer money to take five other lawmakers around the world this month on a corporate jet. That's when big government is good, for Boehner anyway.