Conservatism Needs A Diet

Perhaps you heard Tom Delay's recent comment that there simply is no more fat to cut from the federal budget.  You may have been as shocked as I am, especially after Congress passed the most pork-heavy transportation and energy bills in history.  Just for the record, here is what Delay declared:

WASHINGTON -- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said yesterday that Republicans have done so well in cutting spending that he declared an "ongoing victory," and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget.
    
    Mr. DeLay was defending Republicans' choice to borrow money and add to this year's expected $331 billion deficit to pay for Hurricane Katrina relief. Some Republicans have said Congress should make cuts in other areas, but Mr. DeLay said that doesn't seem possible.
...

Asked if that meant the government was running at peak efficiency, Mr. DeLay said, "Yes, after 11 years of Republican majority we've pared it down pretty good."

The ridiculousness of this statement speaks for itself.  Anyone who has paid any attention at all to the federal government knows that the government is about as obese as your average American.

Here is what Andrew Sullivan had to say about it all:

This is what conservatism has now come to mean: the worst aspects of big government liberalism with the worst aspects of meddling in the moral decisions of people's private lives. And the people who have done this seem oblivious to it. I will remind you, Tom DeLay equated a balanced budget with fiscal sanity in the Clinton years. But now it's his budget, and his constituents and interest groups who get to feed at the trough, and the sky is the limit. A reminder to fiscal conservatives: today's GOP isn't just not what it used to be; it's your main enemy now. Conservatism has been hijacked by puritans and spendthrifts. Their unifying philosophy is meddling in other people's lives and spending other people's money.

Right on.  Real "conservatism" hasn't been a functional philosophy in the U.S. Government since the late 1990s.  It wasn't the philosophy I subscribed to, but at least it was consistant and honest.

Comments

[Chief Wiggum]

The spin I'm currently hearing about this comment is that it was supposed to set the Democrats up - that is, the Dems would understandably react with astonishment to the comment, and thus would put DeLay in a position to reply "Okay, so what do YOU suggest we cut?"

This spin might be convincing if I believed that there were more than a few genuine fiscal conservatives in Congress anymore.