Might As Well Face It...

I don't know that I agree with the entire thrust of where John Fund and Instapundit are leading us, but it's an argument worth considering. The deeper problem is that we've got two political parties, and neither one of them are interested in making deep cuts in the size and scope of Government. I've suspected that Bush is trying to Starve the Beast, but the amount of pork coming out of Congress belies this idea. So it's a cudgel the Democrats could take up. But they won't.

How can I be sure? Because the economy's decent, and when the economy's decent, no one likes to hear that cuts need to be made. Moreover, the Democrats have too many underbosses from special interest groups who want more, not less. A Democrat who argued in favor of of reducing spending would never make it out of the primaries.
If anything, we'll hear the old "if we can spend money on wars" routine, ad infinitum, as a justification for MORE spending.

Fund:

One successful test to see if a democracy is mature should be its ability to establish priorities, streamline procedures and engage in fresh, new thinking after a national emergency.

This we cannot seem to do. The political classes are turned on, (I haven't noticed that McCain-Feingold has made special interests less powerful, have you?) the masses are tuned out. We're waiting for the drop.