We’re living the conservative paradise …

#1 – Government is shrinking
#2 – Taxes are at the lowest they’ve been in over 60 years.
#3 – Corporations are making ungodly amounts of money with low tax rates
#4 – We have never had more free and unrestricted trade in the history of our country

I’ve already covered all of that in Conservative Ideology Has Created the Highest Poverty Levels Since the 1960′s.

Economix shares some great graphs and writes HERE:

In other words, without the drag of shrinking government, the growth rate of the overall economy (which is measured as consumer spending + investment + government spending + net exports) would be faster. That is even before you consider how public layoffs ripple through the private sector as unemployed workers curb their spending.

Indeed, the shrinking government labor force is another factor worth noting when thinking about the role of government in the economy. While President Obama has been pegged as a big-government politician, the total number of government jobs has actually fallen under his presidency. Federal payrolls have risen a little bit, but not enough to fully plug the steady leak of layoffs at the state and local level.

So – why are conservatives complaining about “bigger government”?  I always find it offensive intellectually when some assclown with good intentions says he’s for smaller government.  That’s great … while we’re talking in platitudes … I’m for puppy dogs, apple pie and the American flag.  When someone says they want smaller government … what do they mean exactly?

• Do they want to limit the size of military spending?  That’s smaller government.
• Do they want to privatize or cut Medicare and Medicaid and leave Seniors and the poor to fend for themselves either on the private insurance market or with no insurance whatsoever.  That’s smaller government.
• Do they want to privatize or cut Social Security leaving an America’s retirement in the hands of the do gooders on Wall Street?  That’s smaller government.
• Should we just stop paying the interest on our federal deficit that has increased mainly due the #1 driver of the federal deficit being the Bush tax cuts (1 and 2)?  That would be smaller government.

If a conservative’s answer is YES to any of those four questions … good luck running on that platform.  Do you think Republican Seniors want to gut Medicare or Social Security when half of America’s seniors are living on $5 a day for food (source); I don’t think so.  Try telling a conservative that you want to cut the military’s budget and get rid of the private contractors who are getting paid more than double what our troops get paid … they will start to spasm in front of you uncontrollably.

If a conservative’s answer to those four questions is no – they want to cut government waste, welfare, foreign aid etc.  Just remind them that we spend more money on the military, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security and the interest on our debt than we take in revenues as a government.

That means – you could literally cut EVERY. SINGLE. THING. the government pays for including keeping student loans at low rates, school lunch programs, pell grants, building roads and infrastructure, export bank for small businesses, grants for research and development to universities, the FBI, FDA, SEC, FTC, CFTC, and all the other alphabet soup departments.  You could cut all that including all of the salaries of Congress and their staff, SCOTUS, Secret Service, and we would still have a deficit.

So – “smaller government” means de facto cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid or the military.  Or you just default on your debt and America no longer shows itself to be “an exceptional nation” at least with the people it owes money to which coincidentally is mostly Americans.

The conservative vision for the future has failed.  The Republican party blocked a lot of the President’s agenda when he had large majorities … and they’re blocking him now that the has a bare majority in the Senate and they have large majorities int he House.  We’re living the conservative dream right now.

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