Maverick, I hope you're not speaking for yourself when you say,
"republicans are not saying government is the problem, they are saying "big government" is the problem." ... because this is the kind of statement that is characteristic of the intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican party. There is a palpable anti-intellectual mindset dominating the Republican party. (The party might benefit from more theoretical mathematicians and fewer business majors

. Please don't, however, interpret my remark as implying that democrats are composed mainly of former whiz kids.)
Big government is not the problem, bad, inefficient government is. But that, in turn, is a natural result of an obsolescent Constitution that allows it, and a Court that has chosen to interpret the Constitution rather freely, while claiming not to. If you have open, efficient government, an appropriate government size will result..
A problem poorly defined won't be fixed. The kind of thinking exhibited by the statement "big government is the problem" is the kind of weak thinking that results in, for example, an across the board sequester of government funds.
If problem 'B' is caused by 'A', you can't fix 'B' until you fix 'A'. We waste government resources attempting, unsuccessfully of course, to fix 'B' while ignoring 'A', or not even having bothered to identify 'A'. (I have bored you enough at this point, so I'll spare you the list of 'A's and 'B's. And be glad I avoided entirely an explanation for why we don't do anything about the 'A's, even when we have identified them.)