Our Shrinking Government

Some conservatives like to bloviate about how Obama is socialist and is increasing the size and reach of government.  The standard riposte of liberals like me is to point to employment figures, which show the government, federal, state and local, as having gotten smaller since he took office.  That's true, but not the whole truth, as is illustrated in this paragraph from a Govloop post:

The Washington area has survived the recession fairly well, but that could change if the across-the-board spending cuts happen in January, that could change. That according to new analysis by the . The Washington region could lose 65,000 federal jobs and 96,000 federal contractor positions in the short term. WTOP reports that the region would be significantly impacted, mainly because of the federal payroll and procurement dollars the area receives from the federal government. [emphasis added]

There's room for a discussion of whether a government which grows by expanding contractor positions while shrinking career employees should be more feared by conservatives, or by liberals. We don't have that discussion.