How far are modern liberals willing to go in endorsing social and economic intervention?

Modern liberals had no qualms with claiming that a larger state was the solution to the new socio-economic threats to freedom and individualism. I.e. John Rawls justified an extension of the state in the name of individual liberty: more laws, more spending, more taxation and more bureaucracy. Rawls insisted that while an enlarged state would require some individuals to sacrifice more of their earnings to the state in the form of progressive taxation, those same individuals could still be persuaded that this was a good and necessary thing. Therefore the ‘enabling state’ was consistent with the liberal principle of government by consent.