I wrote this piece a few weeks ago, but couldn't get it posted because of the turmoil in my personal life.  Now that I have time on my hands because of my recent wisdom teeth removal, I figured I'd revisit this topic.

Welcome to Bizarro world.  Things are strange here.

So here I am reading the Opinion section of the paper, just like I do every day during lunch and I stumble across the article I link to above.

"Starve the beast".  Ok...

If you said "this sounds like a Reagan gimmick", give yourself a Gold Star!

Let's get directly to the premise - conservatives absolutely hate a big Gov't.  Beyond that, they do not loathe, rather they abhor social programs such as welfare and social security.

So if they get into power and drop taxes, it will starve the Gov't [read: The Beast] of money.  With the lower revenue will come deficits.  And those deficits will have to be combated with either higher taxes, or cuts in social programs.

Now we all know a conservative would rather slit their own throat than raise taxes [I hear Bush 1 jokes in the back of my mind...but shall ignore them to try and stay on topic].  So that leaves...yup...trimming or outright axing social programs.

For those of you who caught the "lower taxes yields lower revenue" statement and became confused, give yourself another Gold Star.  Afterall, that is contrary to what they've been telling us for 3 decades at this point.  We've been intentionally lied to so that they could pass this diabolical agenda.  And yes, this is diabolical!  These programs Help Americans!!  It is downright sadistic to get rid of them simply because you disagree with them.  If they didn't work, or caused more problems than they solved, then sure...I'm with ya.  They need to go.  But, for the most part, they work as intended and people are the better for them.

Unless you feel that poor kids should go without health care.  Or that grandma should just tough it out.  But hey, everyone is entitled to an opinion.

The reason Starve The Beast failed is because the Gov't found ways to continue spending even with less revenue.  Deficits became a joke - something for future generations to deal with.

And the best part about it is that the people who were for this policy [read: Bush 2 and his cronies] KNEW It Wasn't Working!  But continued it anyway.

I believe that fits the definition of "insanity".

But I digress.  Perhaps these people are right - perhaps these entitlement programs are a cancer and need to be removed from our society.  But, if that's truly the case, one would think there are better ways of achieving this.  Instead we have budgets blown up on all levels of Gov't and no one with the guts to solve the problem.  I find it amazing that these people enacted these policies, but didn't have the gumption to follow through on them.  Afterall, when the deficits started to raise their ugly head, that was when the social programs were supposed to be axed.  Instead, they found themselves too far down the rabbit hole to know which way was up anymore.