The Courage of their Limited Government Convictions

For thirty years, one of the most basic, most unifying sentiments among Republicans has been that government is too big and spends too much money.

And while Democrats rarely agree that government spends too much money, they have generally agreed that running massive budget deficits is a problem. That’s why, periodically, both Democrats and Republicans have been able to agree to deficit reduction agreements, including the well-intended but generally unsuccessful Gramm-Rudman agreement of the mid-1980s, and most recently, the Budget Control Act of 2011, which produced the sequester spending restraints we currently enjoy.

I say “enjoy,” because the sequester has worked. For the first time, Congress has found a way to restrain the growth of government spending, recognizing that, if they cannot reduce spending on a program-by-program basis, the sequester will do the job for them, if inelegantly.

The result of the sequester is that not only have projected deficits been significantly reduced, but the economy is actually exceeding growth projections. The sky didn’t fall as a result of the sequester—in fact, just today we learned that unemployment has dropped to 7 percent—again, lower than projected.

Now, one can’t necessarily argue that the economy is growing because of the sequester, but one can certainly argue that the sequester didn’t kill economic growth, as the Obama administration and its supporters threatened. In fact, Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker observed that private sector job growth has more than compensated for public sector job losses.

The reason the sequester didn’t harm the economy is that, truth be told, the sequester restraints are tiny—just a pittance of what is necessary if we are truly to reduce government spending and balance the budget without tax increases. Remember, the Obama “stimulus” spending plan added $831 billion in spending over ten years. The sequester has only clawed back $80 billion of that so far, or less than 10 percent. That’s why the supposed harmful impact of the sequester never happened, and it’s also why the sequester must be permitted to continue restraining government spending. It hasn’t yet done enough.

The sequester is also probably the only thing that will eventually force Democrats to real negotiations on long-term entitlement reforms, which thus far they have resisted.

For the party that claims to believe in reducing government spending, the sequester has been an unmitigated success, and about the only legislative success Republicans have enjoyed in the last decade. That’s why it’s stunning to hear Republicans talking about trading away the sequester spending restraints.

Anyone who says they believe government is too big and spends too much money but is squirming over the sequester simply reveals that they are either disingenuous about their beliefs or that they just don’t have the courage of their limited government convictions. And with the next round of sequester spending restraints scheduled to hit in 2014, we’re about to find out who’s who.