By definition, less government is always better

[stpioc]

As it happens, less government isn't always better. In the figure below (which comes from an article by Jarred Bernstein) rubbishes the notion that smaller government is always better. In fact the correlation clearly goes the other way, although that doesn't mean it's causation, but it's enough to dispel the notion that we can expect a big (or any) boost from cutting taxes and reducing the size of the public sector. 

We wouldn't exclude the possibility that this could help in some cases, with targeted measures, but not as a general fix all policy.