In a two party system, do you vote for the party that promises small government and never delivers, or the party that promises bigger government and does delive?
There's vastly more to politics than that. There's even more to "small" vs "big" government than that, or to who really promises and delivers what. This convenient reduction to handy little words obscures all that, to the point where it stops mapping to reality in a meaningful way. It's a fictional abstraction.
If anything, your question reduces to making one party sound incompetent or deceitful, I don't know if that's intended. (And considering that aspect of the party is another fun can full of real-life worms.)
Based on the parent comment, I think it's more "one party sound incompetent and the other deceitful". There was a senator who used to say that American politics was a contest between the stupid party and the evil party.
It's stupidly obvious. Politics is about how we organize government and distribute power to solve the problems of living together as a society of individuals. "Big" vs "small" government is a particular way of interpreting one aspect of that. It's an important aspect and a useful perspective, but even if taken at face value it completely neglects other important things like the rules for making policy and their actual content. Of course, the face value of big vs small has become a mask for something else.
But if you've spent the time since your teens to come to the opposite conclusion in spite of everything going on around, then I suspect there will be very little I can say to you that will make sense to you.
Oh everything you said makes sense so long as I imagine wrongly that everyone is doing what's best for society, and that's why they got into politics.
But politics is really about negotiating ownership in companies that the politician will approve for government projects. And if you aren't doing that, then no other politicians will care to work with you, because it's not profitable for them. You'll be an irrelevant politician that accomplished nothing.
Which side of the aisle you sit on is more typically about where your lobbyists' marketing team agreed would better depict their brand, actually having very little to do with big or small government. Both sides want big government because it means more money for big projects for companies that they will or do own in part.
Sorry to dishearten you if you planned on going into politics.
Well, you could stop undermining what you seem to care for.
You don't have to "wrongly imagine" anything. Everyone not doing what's "best for society" is how the world works, authoritarianism and the rule of rich elites is the default that everything wants to regress to. There are only ever islands where people managed to push this back towards the corners and make room for more of us.
Human societies have taken millenia to come up with a system (or a few similar systems) which have a chance of holding things somewhat at bay. Is it perfect? Far from it. Does it work? Just honestly compare how things are for disadvantaged or even normal, ordinary people in places that work differently. Could it be better? You bet, there's lots to criticize. But notice that you _can_ criticize. Usually, elsewhere, you can't. Is it getting worse? Yes. The lesson is that you have to keep defending this system that gives you a chance to hold people to account and remove them from power.
Comments like yours above, which claim that everything is maximally bad and rigged, do nothing but help things decay further. "There's nothing that can be done! It's the same everywhere! Why even try?" That's how you get other people to stop caring, too, and then the real assholes take over. You're playing right into their hands. You think it's already as bad as it gets? You think you're no longer naive? Well, then maybe you're doing this on purpose; or you're just a new kind of naive. Either way: you are an active part of this problem.
The second biggest problem with this comment is that the conclusion we must take from it if we buy into your statement is that we shouldn’t bother voting.
We would not have a costly war in Iran, blockaded Strait of Hormuz, $6-7/gallon gas, or blanket import tariffs hiking up the prices of consumer staple goods if we voted for the “party that promises bigger government and does deliver.”
I would submit the idea that the latter party is consistently misrepresented and has been the only one that has delivered smaller budget deficits anytime recently.
See also: Tax Cut and Jobs Act, the Kansas Experiment.
The truth of the matter is, our elites are undertaxed at historic levels. At no point in our lifetime have the wealthy been taxed at a lower rate than they are today. There isn’t actually anything wrong with government spending outside of the endless/aimless wars (started by…). It’s the revenue side that deserves scrutiny.
Considering the Trump administration's policy on Isreal / Palestine / Iran seems to be a direct follow-on from the previous administration, I'm not so sure about that assertion.
If anything, your question reduces to making one party sound incompetent or deceitful, I don't know if that's intended. (And considering that aspect of the party is another fun can full of real-life worms.)