How can politicians promise smaller government when we have more people to govern?

I think you misunderstand.

for the last 80 years the most czar positions apointed was 11 by FDR, GWB appointed 33 and Obama 38.

Cabinets... there were only 5 to start with... we now have 15 cabinet positions as well as 7 more cabinet level positions.

We now have about 1 in 6 people that work for the government.

Entitlement spending ... 40 years ago medicare,medicaid,SSI plus interest spending was about 5% of GDP. Now its more than double that.

Elections have gotten much longer and much more expensive, many more people in government are getting less done, the cost just to maintain the beauracracy has become enormous in and of itself let alone getting anything done.

The same way that politicians can claim adding 40 million uninsured folks won't increase costs to the federal government. It's magic.

There is more government since Obama took office we dont need that many.Paying all those people for NOTHING .Thats his friends he put in there.

It has more to do with the "services" being provided by the Government and not it's literal size.

For example a lot of people don't see why we need a U.S. Department of Education when each state and most counties already have departments of education.

Sure, some parts of the government need to scale based on the population they are serving. But some departments just aren't needed no matter how many people they supposedly "serve".

You have a basic misunderstanding. The government is bloated already. The government is involved in way to many areas of our lives. How many government programs are ever ended? Once they get started they live seemingly forever. There is plenty of room to reduce bloated government.