JOPLIN, Mo. — 2010 was just the beginning, Sen. Roy Blunt said, of a once in a generation decision.

Speaking to Joplin business leaders, Blunt, who was elected to the senate in the Republican wave last year, said next year’s major election will be a defining moment in the debate over the size of federal government.

“Different views for the future of the country are as clear as they’ve been,” he said, defining the debate as “do we what to be western Europe or do we not want to be western Europe.”

Blunt, who was recently elected to a Republican leadership position in the senate, was one of the first senators to endorse former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney for president. He now leads the effort in the Congress to secure support.

Blunt’s rhetoric mirrored rhetoric he used in his successful 2010 campaign, where he declared the fight for control of the congress a whether the “people are bigger than the government.”

“I think that the debate that started in 2010 is going to end in 2012,” he said, in an interview with PoliticMo. “This is essentially a three year debate about who we’re going to be.”

Blunt thinks some dysfunction in government currently, where the Republican controlled House of Representatives and Democratically controlled Senate and White House seem unable to reach agreement on major issues, may be attributable to the debate.