LITTLE DISPUTE. You know, whenever you read someone saying, "There is little dispute among economists that [blah blah blah]," it's probably a safe assumption that "blah blah blah" actually engenders huge amounts of dispute. Economists dispute everything, and anything they're actually of one mind on tends to be too banal to write about. Take Kevin Hasset's assertion that "[t]here is little dispute among economists that the U.S.'s big advantage is its relatively small government." There's actually plenty of dispute about that. Indeed, most economists -- though not all -- tend to think France's economic failings have a lot to do with their labor market policies, which prize security over dynamism and often disincentivize work. On the other hand, the Scandinavian countries have far larger governments than the US and have also enjoyed higher economic growth than we have. The difference is that they use their public sector to ensure security and retraining without stifling dynamism or economic freedom. For more on how, at least, Denmark did this, see Jon Cohn's article from a few months back. More generally, what government does and how it does it matters much more than how big it is. --Ezra Klein
