SACRAMENTO, CA -- In cinematic terms, the last three generations have been educated to see government as Superman, able to leap all obstacles in a single bound and accomplish nearly miraculous feats for millions of people, at little or no cost to those people themselves. As the century draws to a close, many adults and young people are getting their ideas not from books and magazines but popular culture, which has supplied the most accurate symbol of government to come along in some time.

He is Fat Bastard, a villain in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, still packing in the Generation-X crowd, and which knocked the latest Star Wars film--the one supposedly bursting with symbolism--out of first place. Fat Bastard is bloated and grotesque, just like government.

Though seldom identified as such by the media, politicians, and public schools, the federal government is the nation’s largest landowner, largest employer, and largest debtor. The federal government dwarfs even the biggest corporations and wields something they do not enjoy--police power. The government maintains scores of agencies and bureaucracies, many of dubious utility and stocked with unelected regulators and bureaucrats whose mission is to tell Americans how to live their lives. The government spends millions to subsidize ethanol, a fuel used by practically nobody, and every year the federal budget bulges with pork. All this heft and activity give the government a ravenous appetite, just like the movie character.

"I can’t stop eating," says Fat Bastard, who has no visible means of support other than what he takes from other people.

Likewise, the government produces nothing that people willingly purchase in a free market. It subsists on the taxes and fees paid by the populace. Some seem to forget this reality, well into adulthood. It is not possible for the government to provide a service at no cost, and with no adverse effects. In fact, things tend to cost more when the government does them. Witness California Governor Gray Davis fattening up the state by reversing privatization and hiring state workers to clean government buildings, at approximately double the cost.

Fat Bastard has culinary designs on babies, which also has symbolic application. The federal government operates 150 programs just for children, at an annual cost of $50 billion. But the government is already spending the children’s income, and that of generations yet unborn. The government even gets your money before you do, in the form of withholding.

Excessive fat is unhealthy for individuals and nations alike. The American founders envisioned a limited government that would do only what was not practical or prudent for individuals. They wanted a country with a government, not the current arrangement--a government with a country.

Since both Fat Bastard and the government are incorrigible, the only answer is to starve them down to size. But before that can happen, those who will lead the nation into the next century need to grasp the dimensions of the problem. Fortunately, some of the best teaching tools are unintentional.

When Generation-X types hear politicians extolling the wonderful things government can do for them, they should think not of the sleek Superman but the omnivorous Fat Bastard. He may not be as politically correct, but as a symbol for government greed and waste, he is pure cinema vma vérité.

-- K. Lloyd Billingsley