Steve Benen talks about the differences between left and right policy goals:
For the left, the goals relate to policy ends. We want to expand access to quality health care. We want to lower carbon emissions to combat global warming. We want to reform the lending process for student loans so more young people can afford to go to college. There are competing ways to get to where progressives want to go, but the focus is on the policy achievement.
So, to Krugman’s point, the liberal worldview is not about necessarily increasing the size of government or raising taxes; those mechanisms are only valuable insofar as they reach the desired end-point. Whether the government increases or shrinks in the process is largely irrelevant.
For the right, it’s backwards — the ideological goal is the achievement.
I think this happens because conservatism is mostly based on fiction by Ayn Rand and perhaps a misguided view that a strong government weakens the church; which given the number of scandals in churches may be a good thing. My main point though is that their is no proof that making government smaller does anything for anyone and in fact most places with weak central government are not real nice, I am thinking Haiti, Somalia and Sudan. But magicaly good things are supposed to happen if we just lower taxes and end regulation, hasn’t happened yet and no matter how hard we wish for good things it wont happen in the future either.
Thanks to limited government and the incentives that come with greater freedom, US productivity has been stronger than any other country’s in the last half a century. Incomes per household member have increased by 50% in the last 2 or 3 decades.
Even a plurality of those under poverty now own home equity, 2 cars, cable television, cell phones, air conditioning–something that was not true a couple of generations ago.
What are you smoking?
But the main complaint of the Tea Baggers is that government has taken over everything and regulated too many things in the last few decades.
I would argue that the equality you are talking about is a result of Social Security and government backed mortgages; and to an extent strong worker protections all things that eroded under Bush/Cheney and the end result was a decline in the living condtions of most citizens.
As for what I am smoking, you know Denver is probably the capital for “medical” Marijuana. I put that in quotes because just about every corner has a dispensary so I strongly suspect there may be some recreational users. Interesting thing is all these dispecaries seem to have become a major employer. Perhaps there is one regualtion we can agree should be repealed.
The tea baggers aren’t much brighter than anybody else.