Why Do Republicans Hate Government?

Harold Meyerson, via Ritholtz:

Republicans, to be sure, have long waged a war on government, but only now has it become an apocalyptic and total war. At its root, I suspect, is the fear and loathing that rank-and-file right-wingers feel toward what their government, and their nation, is inexorably becoming: multiracial, multicultural, cosmopolitan and now headed by a president who personifies those qualities. That America is also downwardly mobile is a challenge for us all, but for the right, the anxiety our economy understandably evokes is augmented by the politics of racial resentment and the fury that the country is no longer only theirs. That’s not a country whose government they want to pay for — and if the apocalypse befalls us, they seem to have concluded, so much the better.

I know a lot of people will disagree with this, but I tend to hear something similar when I hear people complaining about the government.  It is a lot of talk about waste, and drug testing welfare recipients and such.  The people I hear seem to think a lot of people have it easy at their expense, and the government is funding it all.  From what I've seen, I'd rather go about making my money and paying taxes than be the "lucky duckies" who don't pay any income taxes because they are too damn poor.  I don't want to qualify for food stamps or medicaid, not because I don't want the government giving me something for nothing, but because it means I just don't have much stuff.  I feel much more comfortable not worrying about where the money to pay the rent is going to come from.  I'm confused by all of the people I hear who really can't explain anything about the budget, and really don't understand the numbers involved, but that are really concerned about wealthy people paying too much in taxes.  Don't worry, rich people are doing ok.  They've gotten a better deal on taxes in the past ten years than they have at any time after World War II.  They (including myself) can afford to  pay taxes at the same rates as they did in the 1990s.  That will help relieve the budget deficit.  It won't damage the recovery.  It is really simple, just do it.