One Cheer, Two Boos for Andrew Sullivan; Put Up or Shut Up Time for the GOP

Though he was one of the earliest bloggers, and the first one I read consistently, I don’t blogroll Andrew Sullivan. He began as a post-9/11 breath of fresh air, a usually sensible sort-of conservative who recognized the evil of our Jihadist enemy. But let’s just say that I don’t share his, er, obsessions, and that visiting his site in search of something fresh these days almost inevitably disappoints.

But one of his earlier mantras, one that he justifiably rubbed in earlier this week, is that George Bush has allowed federal spending to grow unchecked, has made no attempt to enforce spending discipline on his party, and has initiated much of the new spending himself (Homeland Security, AIDS, etc.).

I was willing to give Mr. Bush the benefit of the doubt for one reason, and one reason only: I thought that he made a political calculation that he would not be able to execute the War On Terror if he attempted simultaneously to exercise fiscal restraint. The theory was that if he tried, Democrats would link government program “cuts” (really reductions in the rate of growth) to the cost of the WOT and would therefore not support it (remember who, thanks to Jim Jeffords, controlled the Senate at the time), with consequences that could have put our national survival in doubt.

That once-legitimate excuse, if that was indeed the line of reasoning, is long gone, and Sullivan’s warnings that the GOP has no appetite for spending control ring unfortunately true (One Cheer).

But then he blows it and says that a Kerry presidency would have been more restrained, and that we would be better off with him than with Bush.

Wrong, Andrew. A Kerry presidency would have ensured the end of the revenue-increasing tax cuts (Boo #1). Revenues increased as a result of the 1980s tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts have thus far had a similar impact, as I noted when quoting Don Luskin at this post:

According to Treasury Department statistics, the federal government collected tax revenues of $1.79 trillion in the 12 months leading up to the enactment of the 2003 tax cuts. In the next 12 months, despite lower tax rates, the government took in more: $1.82 trillion. Then in the next 12 months — still with lower tax rates — it took in even more, at $2.06 trillion (that’s a 13.2% increase in one year–Ed.).

So the Kerry tax increase would have led to even worse deficits than we have today, even if Kerry could have nibbled around the edges of spending, which no one seriously thinks would have happened anyway (Boo #2).

What now? Bush and the Republicans have to get a grip on spending and pass meaningful entitlement reform, or they will lose their grip on power.