Starve the Beast

Paul Krugman has an excellent column today in the NYT on his take on Republican strategy starting in the Reagan years. The idea is that the GOP will "starve the beast" (with the ultimate goal of dismantling big government and its largest expenditures - Medicare, Medicaid, and SS) by supporting popular tax cut after popular tax cut until the government is in such a fiscal mess that they have to then do the "responsible" thing and cut the social welfare programs that they so oppose (again: Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security). However, the GOP has refused to cut any of these programs because they remain hugely popular among the people in this country.

Then, this summer, during the health care debates, the Republicans even went so far as to be the opponents of responsible cuts in Medicare under the Democratic health care proposal (that aimed to get rid of the government subsidies to the health insurers established under Bush's Medicare Part D legislation). They lied that these cuts would create "Death Panels." Since when is the GOP the party that protects Medicare? The Republicans have been railing against these socialized programs forever.

Recently, Obama has been trying to force the GOP (through the bipartisan commission) to make the tough decisions and publicly decide which extremely popular programs they want to cut. Despite the fact that the bipartisan bill, written by Sens. Gregg and Conrad, had support from both parties, when Obama publicly endorsed the plan, 7 GOP Co-Sponsors of the bill voted against it, leaving the bill to die with just 53 Aye votes in the Senate. Kick the can down the road. Is Congress actually interested in Governing?