Except for the 50% who work for the government?
Even some of those that work for government do NOT believe it...
Therein lies the basis of government growth. In each government office is a bunch of level 2 bureaucrats that want to be level 3 bureaucrats. They find something else to regulate and say that because they are doing more they need more level 1 bureaucrats under them to perform their regulatory duties. When they get enough they go to their superiors and say they have enough people under them so they need to be promoted to a level 3. Then they start working on their level 4 promotion in the same way. Multiply this by the number of government employees and you see why government NEVER gets smaller.
To stop this I think we need a cap on how long someone can be employed by the government (say 2 years at a stretch followed by at least five years in the private sector.) This would break the chain and slow the blob like growth inherent in the system.