Politics: Starve the Beast

For readers who don't know what I'm talking about: ever since Reagan, the G.O.P. has been run by people who want a much smaller government. In the famous words of the activist Grover Norquist, conservatives want to get the government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.

But there has always been a political problem with this agenda. Voters may say that they oppose big government, but the programs that actually dominate federal spending -- Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- are very popular. So how can the public be persuaded to accept large spending cuts?

See The Bankruptcy Boys by Paul Krugman, February 21, 2010.