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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (29384)	9/28/2006 1:13:53 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 541376

As for spending, one data point I recall is that Congressional spending under Reagan was almost exactly the sum total of what Reagan requested in his budget submissions. That is pretty much true, but not nearly as meaningful as you might think it is. Those spending requests are greatly effected by what can be passed. They aren't created in a vacuum, they are created with consideration of what congress will vote for. Also they often represent bargains where one side gives the other side the spending they want. If Reagan had total control over the budget I think the spending would have been less, possibly much less. Which doesn't BTW mean that I think Reagan did a great job in terms of fiscal discipline, or that any president should have total control over the budget. Also the spending was lower (in real per capita terms) than today, or under Clinton. And the military part of the spending, was in the context of contributing to the end of the cold war which allowed Clinton to greatly reduce military spending (as a percentage of GDP, and also a reduction in inflation adjusted terms, esp. if you consider inflation in military items has long run faster than general inflation). Is there any serious Republican candidate for 2008 who advocates seriously reducing the size of government? Probably not. The difference between the candidates on this score is at the margin. Some might be better than others, perhaps even noticeably better than others, but none of them are proposing fundamental changes in government. If not, is that just because the Republicans wouldn't nominate someone that far outside the mainstream now? To an extent, but even within the Republican party serious reductions in government are outside the mainstream. There are elements within the party that would support a serious slow down in the growth of government, but elements that would support actual reductions are probably in the minority and the people that would support major reductions are probably a small minority. Republicans often oppose new programs, but once the program gets enacted they rarely push to end it.