Starve The Puppy

Gail Collins has a good column in the New York Times today on the Tea Party phenomenon, and makes two important points. First, folks who want to dramatically reduce taxation and "Starve the Beast" are misunderstanding the way most Americans see the federal government, beyond Congress. Collins writes:

The problem with this whole line of reasoning is that it begins with the idea that government is a beast. We may whine about Congress, but a large part of the population still sees the federal government as a stimulus-providing, Social-Security-check-sending, Somali-pirate-defeating protector. How far do you think the Republicans would have gotten if they had announced that they wanted to Starve the Family Dog?

Perhaps his name was Bo. He was so cute, and Ronald Reagan wanted to let him shrivel away.

But she also points out something we've said in this space before, that most of the programmatic cuts that Obama is proposing as a way to bring government spending under control aren't really significant or painful reductions. We haven't gotten to the hard choices part of this process yet, but with spending continuing the way it is, it'll be painful when we get there:

Obama has been trying to set an example of prudent government, trotting out cabinet officials to describe the way projects are coming in under budget and proposing cost-cutting changes. For instance, he wants to get rid of a rule somebody in Congress inserted to make sure states will continue to get federal mine cleanup aid even after all the mines are clean. (We're looking at you, Wyoming delegation.)

But while all thrift is worthy, this stuff only provides tiny slivers of savings in return for endless, exhausting struggle.