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without an overturning of power (a.k.a. some kind of revolutionary/watershed movement) the natural progression of government goes from smaller and limited, to larger and more powerful.

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True, there is no set of politicians in existence who will voluntarily pass a law that reduces their powers as opposed to increasing them. The old saying about "power corrupts" is unfortunately true, it doesn't matter how zealous and idealistic a freshman politician is when they start off, by the time they get into a powerful enough position to be able to change things they have either become too fond of the perks or have gotten too comfortable with/sucked in by "how things are done" to want to change the status quo any more.    

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so is it fair to say that this also corresponds with a decrease in the people's voice?

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Uhh, yeah. We all know that as government grows, the people voice diminishes.

The greatest weapon government has is perks for the people. Just how many people do we know that keep upping the ante on just what government should give to them. The more people with perks, the less there are to voice discontent about what government is doing......'cause we don't want to loose those perks.

Take Social Security. It is broke. It is fundamentally flawed. Quarter after quarter, year after year, my personal money set aside for later in life outperforms SS. Most people refuse to see that very basic fact because the money is taken out automatically. They do not have to have the self-discipline to do on their own so they let government do it for them. They will cry foul loud enough when it is not there for them.