Big Government, Complex Government, and the Future of Conservatism

If this be nihilism, make the most of it. Michael Hirsh defends House conservatives’ opposition to the fiscal cliff bargain. The deal meets the standard for agreement-at-any-price “pragmatism”. On the other hand:

Tuesday’s “no” votes represented a wide variety of views. But many GOP House members were appalled at the failure to cut spending or change traditional ways of doing business, especially what The Washington Post noted was “dozens of rider provisions that had nothing to do with the cliff” (including one that kicked over $12 billion over ten years to the renewable-energy industry; another that will benefit the owners of auto-racing tracks in the amount of $78 million; and a $1 million break for coal-mining operations on Indian lands). The House members opposed to this old way–as naïve as they often sound–make up the core of a legitimate resistance movement in American politics, one that is trying to stop the relentless tendency of U.S. government to grow ever larger and more complex, and one that remains frustrated at the continuing inability of its representatives, both Republican and Democrat, to rein that tendency in.

Read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/big-government-complex-government-and-the-future-of-conservatism/