And yet there are countries with more government and much better outcomes along many axes, e.g. Denmark. So maybe there's a difference between a big government and corrupt one?
Also it's hard to define "too much government."
Too many/too steep of taxes?
Too many Government employees?
Too much regulation of industry?
There's definitely some correlation, but I don't think these are strictly coupled.
It would be possible to have France-like tax rates but not employ many government workers by paying private industry to handle tasks like health and education.
I'm of the belief that practices like this might be part of the reason the US has so many healthcare inefficiencies though. Corporations are solely focused on making profit and there just isn't enough competition in areas like telecom, healthcare, etc. to keep prices down.
I'm Canadian and our healthcare isn't perfect, but it's also not the kind of political talking point it is in the US for a reason.