Size Matters

by Dan Jacoby

In many medical schools, prospective doctors are told, "Half of what we know ain't so; the problem is, we don't know which half."

Everybody knows that the Democrats are the party of big government and the Republicans are the party of small government. And yet, now that the Republicans have total control of the machinery of government, government is getting bigger, and at a record rate. And it's not just military spending or the new "Homeland Security" department. So-called "discretionary spending" is going through the roof. Pork barrel projects are being added at a record rate. The Republican majority has apparently decided that the era of big government is not over after all.

Why is this happening? Maybe it's because the Republicans have had control of Congress for nine years, and the White House for the last three. They're the party in absolute power, and we all know what absolute power does.

All of a sudden, President Bush is "shocked, shocked to discover" that there is pork in the federal budget. He's threatening to veto the new highway bill. He should veto it, but he should not get the credit, because he doesn't really want to cut pork.

For three years, George W. Bush has allowed his Republican friends in Congress to send pork-barrel spending to new heights. He has done so despite unheard-of deficits. Suddenly, as the Presidential election approaches, he is against it? Please! If President Bush really wanted to stop pork-barrel spending, he would have started two and a half years ago, right after the 9/11 attacks.

He would have had a perfect weapon to shoot down pork-barrel spending. After all, he was about to spend enormous sums on "homeland security", and with his ridiculously high ratings, Congress would have clamored to cut spending elsewhere. All he had to do was "just say no" to pork, and his approval ratings would have gone even higher.

I suspect the President never met a pig he didn't like.

The truth is, for all the yelling and screaming the Republicans do about the size of government, they truly feel it should be larger. Even if the President hadn’t led the way, the Republicans in Congress could have taken the lead. They could have made a pronouncement that in light of recent tragic events and the cost of fighting the war on terrorism, pork-barrel projects would have to be cut out completely.

And individual members of Congress could have gone to their districts and sold it easily.

But it didn't happen. The Republicans yell and kick and scream and throw huge tantrums over the size of government. But when they had the ideal chance to cut out waste, they squandered it. Instead of accomplishing what they so dearly claimed to want, they ignored their best opportunity. And opportunity knocks only once.

So now the President is going to veto a highway bill because the Republicans have loaded it down with pork, and the President is against pork.

That's what we know. But it ain't so.

 

Copyright 2004, Dan Jacoby

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