government in terms of number of people employed has shrunk under pretty much every administration
If you did bother looking up FRED statistic you would have seen you are wrong : firstly , ignoring fluctuations, the number of federal employee grew pretty much under all administration from 1950 to 1990 and yes that include Reagan the trend is pretty damn clear.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se...
Except a little bit at the start the number of federal employee grew under Reagan even right until the end. It dropped a bit only later under bush senior. In fact do you see when the number massively started to drop ? It was end of bush / and all Clinton's presidency.
Facit you and op are wrong. Reagan massively stocked up federal job, under Bush they dropped a bit, then under Clinton the number dropped massively. And it was NOT in any case a "drop" of number of employee after 1950.
The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is the most likely to be correct. -- William of Occam