Two words, Ace: Newt Gingrich.

Newt got snookered by Clinton on all the "traditional" GOP strengths. Not because they were unpopular-- polls consistently show they are not-- but because Newt was a wet noodle and Clinton was centrist stud.

So, what lesson did the GOP take away? Throw away the issues, and become more like Clinton, because Clinton won his political fights.

Hence, we have a party, and a President who, whatever their merits, learned the lesson that there is no political price to be paid in spending like drunken sailors. Hell, the Dems were able to get away with it for close to 40 years.

Flat tax, or something else that drastic-- it's like nuking the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

We have to starve the beast in order to fit it back into the cage. Too bad nobody cares to.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

There is only one excuse for Bush's spending. Without it, President Kerry would have surrendered in Iraq by now.

FOOL! The loss of energy through friction and heat dissipation is NOT unavoidable! I could prove it to you, but I never kept written notes, and now, well, I'm dead. You'll just have to trust me - I demonstrated it during my Colorado Springs experiments.

Why do Bush and Repubs spend like drunken whores? Because they think it will get them votes from Democrats who already hate them and think the GOP are Nazis.

Bush is being a real pussy in that way. He is trying to appease the same people who call him Hitler. In some ways he is a political genius...if...and only IF...he is calling the shots and not letting Rove and the other triangulators run the show.

Sadly, he is listening to his yes-men and trying to score points with those who would probably shoot him dead if they wern't bigger cowards. He is better off being a LEADER and working directly with the American people (as he did following 9-11 with international policy).

"and he's got the charts and graphs to prove it..."

Not to nitpick, Ace, but I actually know Veronique and the last time I checked she was a, you know, she.

A French accented she, but a she nonetheless.

The American public in general does not support spending restraint until it becomes crystal clear that lavish spending cannot continue. Case in point: nobody in Washington said a word about spending restraint until our budget deficits started to get out of control.

There will always be an appetite for spending if resources are plentiful. It sounds quite cynical, but it really does take a crisis or near crisis for people to understand that the buck has to stop somewhere.

Here are my questions:

1) How do you make it politically possible to either cut or maintain real spending levels in the absence of a large deficit?

2) How do you mobilize and energize the limited constituencies of spending restraint against the larger, more mobile, and better organized constituencies for continued government largesse?

If anybody has a good answer to either of those questions, I'd love to hear it.

I argued a little about some of this over at Garfield Ridge (yes, I actually LIKE it there), but Bush has the right idea. Spend now to save later. NCLB should lead to vouchers, big spending to transition SS to private accounts etc. The "ownership society" will eventually lead to drastic cuts in entitlements, but it is a long term goal, and we won't win elections by being misers in the short term ( though I hate the prescription drug plan). Entitlements is the only area where saving money will make a significant difference. The Democrats built this mess over 50 years. It will take 20 years to tear it down.

Did the Republican Congress really believe in controlling spending, or did they just seek to thwart Clinton?

I am convinced they were sincere at the time in 1994. But the MSM pounded them so mercilessly, and the job of cost cutting so thankless, that as Newt put it:

"they came to do good and stayed to do well."

Patrick H -

Most of Bush's spending is on entitlements, pork, or frittered away in Iraq making the Nation of Noble Iraqis better off. And also borrowing money like making up for his tax cuts to the wealthy.

It's not just his spending, it's his borrowing from the Asians and Saudis - he has racked up more debt than the sum of Presidents from JFK to Clinton.

Reagan at least spent his money building up the military and had a ton of job creation and a massive modern military second to none when he was done. He also saved the auto and computer industries from the Japs, and triggered a massive round of capital spending that launched the IT economy.

The prescription drug deal was both an entitlement and pork - it bars the Fed Gov't from trying to negotiate bulk discounts from big Pharma, something every other country does, even the VA negotiates 1/2 price. Fortunately the VA got grandfathered and can still get a good price on the drugs it's Vets need.

Other pork? There is so much it - is beyond out of control, and his tax cuts didn't stimulate capital investment as Reagan made sure of by targeting his tax breaks to business to all but force them to do so. Instead, the tax cuts in business and personal just fueled an orgy of buying foreign -made goods and K Street Shyster corruption scams. My favorite pork though has to be the Alaskan bridges to nowhere, the missing 8 billion in pork to "Noble Iraqis", and Sen Grassley's Rain Forest Research Center & Museum in Nebraska.

The Bushies aren't "starving the Big Beast of Government". They are just rooting deeply at the trough.

So *someone* please explain why he's so stingy with the whole guarding the borders thing?

Dubya inherited a recession from Clinton. His last two years were a downward spiral, nothing of which was heard from the MSM. So, in theory, increasing government spending to keep the recession shallow made sense. Now, we see again that tax cuts increase revenue to the Fed. government. It's time to put a collar on spending and cut taxes some more. Not likely though with elections in '06 and '08.

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