Why Republicans Can't Cut Spending

The GOP switch from government-shrinking to machine-building has backfired.

Jonathan Rauch | January 23, 2006

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The answer has to do with a critical shift in the Republicans' governing strategy, dating to the late 1990s. From 1981 through 1998, Republican reformers' thinking was dominated by Dave Stockman (President Reagan's first budget director) and Newt Gingrich (the reform-minded House speaker of 1995 to '98). Both were movement politicians who believed that, by cutting spending, Republicans could build prosperity, tame Big Government, and win majority status.

The trouble was that budget cuts brought short-term political backlashes that kept interrupting the program. Burned by President Clinton in 1995-96 and then spanked by voters in 1998, Republicans decided to reverse the sequence. First they would build a political machine; then, once safely entrenched, they would reform Social Security and Medicare, shrink government, and so on. The new course was set by DeLay and Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist—both machine-builders par excellence.

And so, under DeLay and Bush, the Republicans spent generously, even profusely, to build their base. The number of budgetary earmarks increased from 2,100 in 1998 to 14,000 in 2005, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. To disarm the Democrats, the Republicans gave up on reducing entitlement spending and instead dramatically increased it, notably with an expensive new prescription drug program. (According to Richard Kogan, a senior fellow with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Republicans have added $540 billion to entitlement costs over the 2001-to-2011 period.) They cut taxes and spent heavily on the Iraq war and defense. (Real spending on defense and security has risen by more than 7 percent a year since 2001, Kogan says.)

When, last year, DeLay blurted out that the budget had no fat left, he meant that it had no political fat, and he was right. Every dollar now served a constituent group in DeLay's carefully built machine. Phase one had worked. In 2005, with Bush safely re-elected and their congressional majorities cemented, Republicans launched phase two: a reform effort aimed at Social Security.

Then came a shock. Social Security reform collapsed and spending proved all but intractable, both for the same reason: Large-scale reform needs a popular majority, not just a parliamentary one, and Republicans constitute only a third of the country. In building their machine, the Republicans had made Democrats hostile and independents suspicious, and the support that remained was far from enough.

No one should be surprised that political entrenchment militates against governmental reform. One-party rule always turns reactionary. Still, the 2006 budget cycle is important for three reasons. First, conservatives finally realized they were captives of their own machine. Second, they rebelled, passing a package of entitlement cuts for the first time in eight years. Third, their rebellion proved not how much they could accomplish without Democratic votes, but how little. DeLay's fortress is conservatism's prison.

© Copyright 2006 National Journal

Jonathan Rauch is a senior writer and columnist for National Journal and a frequent contributor to Reason. The article was originally published by National Journal.