> The growth of government is a direct response to constant abuses at the hands of smaller local government, corporations, and wealthy individuals.

Or maybe it's a direct response to the fact that the people who have the power to grow the government also work for the government and are therefore incentivized to grow the government.

Which idiot is going around saying "wow, this one level of government sucks, I'd better give more money and power to a slightly different level of government"?

I think you're also wrong that local governments are frequently committing abuses; the federal government seems to do that much more frequently (possibly by nature of its tremendous scope), and has an approval rating to match.