On one of the radio talk shows recently, a Washington pundit, in response to a caller who asked whether government wasn't getting too big and trying to do too many things for too many people, declared that he believed government ''should do those things for people that people can't do for themselves.'' I don't recall which show it was, or which pundit, but no matter---it was an answer often given to a question often asked.

''Government should do those things for people that people can't do for themselves.''

Ever notice how ambiguous that cliche is? Does it mean that government should do only those things no one can do for themselves, or that it should do everything someone or other can't do for himself or herself?

Now clearly which interpretation you choose will make a big difference in the size of the government you will get. There are but a paltry handful of things no one can do individually, or with the voluntary cooperation of others, but many things indeed that some people cannot do for themselves. No one, for example, can individually mount an adequate deterrent against a nuclear attack. And even if a few improbably wealthy individuals could get together and agree to do so, it would surely be unfair that a nuclear ''umbrella'' that protects us all should be financed by only a handful of citizens, with the rest getting a tree ride.

The criminal justice system is also a service individuals could not adequately provide for themselves, though for a different reason. While we could perhaps purchase privately offered ''crime insurance'' which would pay private investigators and prosecutors to apprehend and punish perpetrators of crimes against our persons or property, there would be grave difficulties with fairness and neutrality: if the police, prosecutors, and judges were all working for the us, the victim, how fair could they be to someone accused? And what if the accused were represented by a rival insurance company, which viewed the arrest of its customer as merely a kidnapping?

Certain public facilities, e.g., roads, while they could be privately provided (and have been, in some cases), are often more conveniently and efficiently provided publicly, and as long as noone other than their users is being required to pay for them (as had been the case traditionally, though not recently, in America), Libertarians have no objection to public ownership of them.

But, while a case can be made that government ought to do those things no one would or could do for themselves because of the problem of tree riding, or because of the need for commonality and impartiality, or because transaction costs would be overwhelming, most of the benefits gummint has undertaken to shower upon us in recent years have been services people can indeed provide for themselves, and regularly do so. Millions of people provide for their own retirement years; they don't need Social Security. Most of us find or create our own jobs; we don't need gummint makework programs. Most people are able to buy, build, or rent housing on their own---they have no need for HUD. And while it may be true, as the statists regularly remind us, that 37 million Americans lack health insurance, about 215 million have it, and have no need of gummint health care schemes.

It seems plain, then, that when statists aver that government should supply those things that ''people can't provide for themselves,'' it is usually the second interpretation they have in mind.

Now since human desires are infinite, and since for any good or service one can imagine, there is bound to be someone or other who cannot secure it for himself, adopting the loose interpretation will guarantee a government of unlimited size. Can't afford day care? Call your Congresscritter. Want less work and more pay, but your employer only suggests that you seek opportunities elsewhere? Promise a politician your vote if he will put a gun to the employer's head. Have to give up a couple of six packs each month to pay your cable teevee bill? Invoke the coercive power of the State to secure your right'' to indulge, on your terms, in these cultural essentials. Can't persuade your landlord to accept pets? Don't bother offering a larger deposit, or looking for another flat. Just register to vote. Your local goon squad---er, legislative delegation---backed by the local and state police, FBI, IRS, ATF, and the Marines---stands ready to break his legs.

There is, however an economic law in play here that pandering legislators can't repeal---the principle of TANSTAAFL ('There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch'). Each time we succeed in persuading the gummint to do, via force, something we claim we can't do for ourselves---even though millions of others somehow manage to do it---someone, sooner or later pays. We pay directly in taxes, of course---not only for our own favorite cut of pork, but for everyone else's, thus immediately thrusting other goods we desire out of financial reach (to be sure, we have seen to it that much of this cost---over $4 trillion---will be paid later rather than sooner). But even more onerous are the indirect costs: the permanent loss of jobs resulting from gummint-imposed costs to create them (unemployment rates now do not fall much below 6%, even in prosperous times, compared to less than 2% in the ‘50s); the growing caste of social drones, many predatory, who never found it necessary to develop a civil demeanor or productive habits, or whose parents never thought it necessary to inculcate them; the disappearance of affordable rental housing as mom & pop landlords, unable or unwilling to manage their properties in compliance with gummint edicts, abandon them or put them to other uses.

But the most debilitating cost of all is the dissipation of the nation's human capital---the degeneration of a mature society of free, resourceful, and mannered people into a noisy national nursery overcrowded with uncivil, unproductive, parasitic brats who know no method of meeting their needs other than by whining; who have no personal resources other than their votes.

''Government should do those things for people that people cannot do for themselves.''

No doubt. But let's make sure we understand that proposition correctly.