Big Government is Back

"The era of big goverment is back."

That sentiment is being universally bandied about - in the news, on Capitol Hill, in the blogosphere. It is said across tables in every kitchen, coffeehouse and watering hole in the country these days.

That may indeed be the case, but one can hardly blame Barack Obama for it. Big government has been back for years, after arriving on the point of a Republican spear. Even their eventual candidate, John McCain, long ago excoriated his colleagues for spending "like drunken sailors".

Everyone recalls how George W. Bush presided over the most swollen budgets, the deepest deficits and the greatest expansion of the federal government in American history. His largesse was so embarrassing that the funding of our war(s) couldn't be accounted for in the regular spending bills.

And how seriously could he be taken even in that somber endeavor? On October 4, 2001 Bush gave a speech in Washington, D.C. in which he actually said, "We need to counter the shock wave of the evil-doer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates." Really.

His fellow Republicans bring to bear the same amount of pomp and gravitas as they always have, with House members voting in unison against Obama's economic stimulus plan. Ironically enough, in doing so, they rejected one of the biggest tax cuts ever to pass in Congress - which it did, even without their support.

Some right-wing stooges have proclaimed this to be the moment at which conservatives lawmakers "rediscovered their manhood". They think (well, they try to think) that Obama wanted them on board so that they would be anchored to the eventual failure of the stimulus.

That's just not so. All the new president is doing is standing over the economy that the GOP killed, scraping together the paddles of a financial defibrillator. He asked for their support, didn't get any, and is now free to call his opponents stubborn obstructionists (which comes as no surprise to over three-fourths of the public).

This passion play will be repeated in the Senate. Republicans will wail and gnash their teeth, and we can move on to the business of doing the same thing with every other major challenge before us. The minority party is free to go home if they like...

They just need to understand that it isn't their bat and ball anymore. The era of responsible government is back.

pH 1.29.o9