This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The President's speech yesterday was not aimed at bringing people together.

It was instead a full-throated defense of a large, expansive federal government.

David Bowes, Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute, evaluates the President's second inaugural address.

A lot of the commentators that I read following the President's second inaugural said the President

made a vigorous defense of the role of government.

Well he didn't make a vigorous defense of the role of government

so much as a particular view of what is the proper role of government.

Well that's right.

It was a vigorous defense of a vigorous and expansive concept of the role of government.

And in that sense, I mean, the commenters are right.

It was a very ideological speech it was a real

pounding away at themes that are sort of the opposite of Ronald Reagan's 1981

inaugural he is of Ronald Reagan's 1981 inaugural. He is in effect dismissing the whole idea of

limited government of the market process of the idea that the United States has become rich and prosperous and abundant

for more people than anybody in history through the market process.

In his conception of history and of government there's only we, one nation, doing

things collectively.

Now when I spoke with Aaron Powell, editor of Libertarianism.org about a similar speech that the president gave,

which was effectively a campaign speech in Roanoke, he sort of equated government with coordination.

That is, he said something to the effect of,

...