Brendan Miniter argues that while spending hawks have enforced some fiscal discipline on post-Katrina checkbook compassion, the gains are temporary. Republicans, he worries, are wasting every opportunity to meaningfully check the runaway growth of entitlement programs over the long-term:
But what seems to be confounding the Republican Party as a whole is a coherent and broad-based plan to shrink the size of government by controlling spending. Targeted or across-the-board cuts are great-and hopefully appreciated by conservatives for the difficulty in achieving them-but without constant scrutiny and "congressional oversight," such measures won't hold the line on spending in the long run. Once a new Congress or a new administration is seated, all bets are off.
Bets off, indeed. Miniter says the problem isn’t a lack of new ideas, but a lack of effort and initiative on multiple fronts.
