Democrat’s buts are as big a field of solar panels. Republican’s as wide as a South Florida condo complex. Eve Tea Partiers buts are as big as a Navy ship. And they are all flabby as hell, practically flapping in the wind.
Only libertarians have small, firm buts.
I’m not talking about where they sit. I am talking about where they stand. On government spending.
Across party lines, most Americans agree we need to tackle the deficit, including cutting spending. However, ask them what spending we should cut, and suddenly their big, giant, flabby buts are exposed.
Democrats say: cut defense spending, corporate welfare, BUT don’t cut spending on alternative energy, social programs, or health care.
Republicans say: cut spending on welfare, arts, and the EPA, BUT don’t cut social security, education, or farm subsidies.
Even Tea Partiers say: cut spending on most things, BUT don’t cut defense or immigration enforcement.
In other words, they all say: cut spending on you, you, you, and that guy behind the tree, BUT please oh please don’t cut spending on ME!
(OK, I’ve beaten the butt of that dead horse enough)
Never before in my decades of being involved in debates about the size of government has it been this obvious how wedded most people are to the government providing them a broad array of things they want. Not just things you could reasonably describe as public necessities, but just things they want and the easiest way to get them is to have the government provide them.
Only libertarians say: Hell yeah, cut it all, cut everything, even stuff I might think government should still do–at least they should do less of it. For starters, we’d cut defense back as much as reasonable, eliminate corporate welfare and subsidies and move to a flatter, simpler tax system, get the feds out of education, social security, and health care, and start cutting back the inspector and regulatory state.
You really want to cut the deficit? Put libertarians in charge. They may cut some stuff you don’t want cut, but they will certainly cut stuff the other guys don’t want as well. They will piss everyone one off, but will get the job done. And we all know this problem won’t get solved without making everyone mad about something, so lets just jump right in.
Libertarian fiscal aerobics will have those buts trimmed down in no time.