The Kruger Man

A Failed Revolution
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Friday 29 December 2006
http://snipurl.com/16a4x

After first attempting to deny the scale of last month's defeat, the apologists have settled on a story line that sounds just like Marxist explanations for the failure of the Soviet Union. What happened, you see, was that the noble ideals of the Republican revolution of 1994 were undermined by Washington's corrupting ways. And the recent defeat was a good thing, because it will force a return to the true conservative path.

But the truth is that the movement that took power in 1994 - a movement that had little to do with true conservatism - was always based on a lie.
[...]
As long as people like Mr. Armey, Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay were out of power, they could run on promises to eliminate vast government waste that existed only in the public's imagination - all those welfare queens driving Cadillacs. But once in power, they couldn't deliver.

[G]overnment by the radical right has been an utter failure even on its own terms: the government hasn't shrunk. Federal outlays other than interest payments and defense spending are a higher percentage of G.D.P. Today ... 14.8 percent in fiscal 2006, compared with 13.8 percent in fiscal 1995.

Unable to make good on its promises, the G.O.P., like other failed revolutionary movements, tried to maintain its grip by exploiting its position of power. Friends were rewarded with patronage: ... Adversaries were harassed with smear campaigns and witch hunts: Congress spent six years and many millions of dollars investigating a failed land deal, and Bill Clinton was impeached over a consensual affair.
[...]
In the end, Republicans didn't shrink the government. But they did degrade it. Baghdad and New Orleans are the arrival destinations of a movement based on deep contempt for governance.