"The House," according to its incoming Speaker, "is going to become the outpost in Washington for the American people and their desire for a smaller, less costly and more accountable government."
John Boehner's vow was of course the worst sort of sententious buncombe. The House's pending majority bears almost no representative relation to "the American people"; it reflects instead the tribalistic ignorance and ahistorical malevolence of a radical, tea-party miasma that is having its day but is soon to dissipate.
Insofar as the tea party crowd took the time and minuscule trouble to vote, I suppose one could pretend they spoke for the people, but that -- and I mean this in all seriousness -- is only a democratic technicality.
There is no polling evidence whatsoever that "the American people" themselves are hellbent on a "smaller, less costly" government. What they want is a government that works, a government that's competent, a government that spends wisely the tax dollars collected from the lowest tax burden since 1950.
Since then, the electorate has had no less than 30 Congressional elections to check or reverse the government's growth. It -- the electorate -- has instead thumbed up accumulating domestic goodies and a sprawling defense apparatus. The people have looked on these creations and have pronounced them Good. In another word, "wise."
I'm casting no judgment here on the essence of this wisdom; I'm only saying the American people conspicuously like the size of government they have, for which, just as conspicuously, they have repeatedly voted.
Nevertheless who dances not to the demagogue's song of "smaller, less costly" government? For heaven's sake even the left wing of the Democratic Party supports such a notional nothingness. If those big, expensive programs can be maintained for less, why the hell not?
Furthermore, here's a real mindbender. While it's true that the American electorate nests by and large in politically centrist to center-right sentiment -- Hey boys and girls, who's for smaller, less costly government? and the crowd goes wild -- it's just as unquestionably true that elected government's path has, for roughly 80 years, again, by and large, veered liberally.
We all tend to say we want mostly one or only one thing from government, yet that "one thing" differs in meaning and substance from special constituency to special constituency. The result, naturally, cannot defy the laws of political physics: government programs grow ... and grow. The enormous but unshakable paradox is invoked that our government's character, shaped by a vaguely center-right electorate, is in fact center-left.
All this will mock the new House's grandiose plans. But of course the tearful John Boehner already knows that; and he knows as well there's always the backstop of the Democratic Senate to mercifully euthanize his party's doddering tea partyism -- whose potential suicidal success would indeed be held "accountable" by a much broader electorate in 2012.