Well, I think you're overly optmistic. Mrs Thatcher had the reputation of cutting state spending - which she did, in effect, by removing nationalised industries from the equation. [Necessary and right, certainly. But irrelevant].
But even with her, if you look at the underlying figures, government *and related state* spending, sometimes disguised, did not shrink.
In fact it took the recent Labour government to truly shrink spending, relative to GDP... which they did by sticking to the promised Conservative budget plans and then underspending <g> which the Tories, judging by their record, would not have done...
Basically I really doubt the will of most politicians to genuinely restrict spending, especially when it impacts their constituents - or large contributors - directly. (The US is possibly even more vulnerable here than the UK).
There's a basic contradiction. Politicians are people driven to want to lead, to think they have a better idea of what needs doing than anyone else. How likely are they then to be really solidly behind shrinking their ability to affect matters? Especially when if they are effective in cutting their own budgets they may be effectively downgraded in importance and effectiveness. This is also an argument which will hold for civil servants working in those departments! Combine that with seeing possibly less-principled neighbours keeping their own slush flowing, and pressure from local interests which may agree that someone should see their funding cut, but that someone should be someone else...
See what I mean? It takes a very radical leadership/power shift to encompass that kind of change. Thatcher managed it in 79, Blair - to a limited extent - in 97. I don't think the US has really seen that kind of alteration in attitudes, and a sufficiently driven and committed leadership to push through painful change; not since 1980.
Of course now, even more than then, there would surely be even more attention paid to special interest groups - if the 'tax cuts for the rich' caused revulsion during a boom, how much more if it takes place against the background of recession. Bush would be taking a major risk if he tried fattening up his family and cronies now. Not that this would necessarily stop him. |
