It’s not the size of the government that matters…

It’s how you use it?

E.J. Dionne provides some interesting commentary in his WaPo column Wednesday about the strange bedfellows some political topics can make, saying that the “big government/small government” dichotomy that is supposed to separate liberals and conservatives is just a myth. Small-government Republicans teaming up with progressive Democrats to attack farm subsidies, and all that. What I found most interesting:

The same inconsistencies apply even to that dreaded concept “socialized medicine.” Last week, American auto companies opened what will be difficult negotiations with the United Auto Workers union. The toughest issue will be health care. General Motors paid $4.8 billion for health care last year, including $3 billion for retirees. Is it any wonder that the good capitalists at GM and the other car companies would love the government to pick up some of these costs?

“There’s been an enormous paradigm shift in the business community,” says Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat who has led Michigan during the crisis in the auto industry. Health care, she said, has “gone from being a moral issue to being an economic issue,” meaning that business leaders who once had objections in principle to government-led health-care reform now have a powerful interest in making it happen.