How big should government be? At what point will it exhaust its ability to solve the problems of society and individuals? Are today’s citizens bankrupting future generations? Has “big government” taken on a life of its own, challenging self-government itself?

These and other questions are the subject of two books that recount the nearly thirty-year fight to curb government growth: The Struggle to Limit Government: A Modern Political History (Cato Institute, 2010) by John Samples, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Representative Government, and Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State (Encounter Books, 2010) by William Voegeli, a contributing editor at the Claremont Review of Books.

Organized in conjunction with Steven F. Hayward, the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at AEI, this book forum was the second in a series of events by AEI’s American Citizenship program. The program is dedicated to strengthening the foundations of American freedom and self-government by renewing our understanding of American citizenship.