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Introduction
It looks Congressional Republicans don't have the chutzpah to "Starve the Beast." Even though elections are not until next year, some Members are beginning to worry about starving if they don't keep their seats. People aren't favorable to Bandit Thought, especially if that means Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits are cut. The Great White Bandit wants to keep on fighting the rebellious colonials in Iraq and other places, but that costs real money. So, according to WaPo, the Bandit's tax-the-poor plans are falling apart ...

Introduction

It looks Congressional Republicans don't have the chutzpah to "Starve the Beast." Even though elections are not until next year, some Members are beginning to worry about starving if they don't keep their seats.

People aren't favorable to Bandit Thought, especially if that means Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits are cut. The Great White Bandit wants to keep on fighting the rebellious colonials in Iraq and other places, but that costs real money.

So, according to WaPo, the Bandit's tax-the-poor plans are falling apart ...

Conservatives are by nature slow to change, so they are only now beginning to understand the fiscal realities which others understood years and decades ago. One reality is that there isn't enough money in the entire discretionary budget to balance the Federal budget, unless one is willing to abolish almost every Federal program(!). Putting it the other way around, if almost all of the discretionary budget were abolished, leaving only the military, Social Security and Medicare, the Federal budget would balance.

Since people are unwilling to suffer Social Security and Medicare cuts, and the Bandit is unwilling to stop spending over $500 billion annually on the military, programs, projects and departments such as

	highway construction,
	aid to public education, Pell grants,
	Veterans Administration,
	Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance,
	Food Stamps, temporary assistance to families (unemployment & welfare),
	agriculture,
	national parks,
	environmental protection,
	Postal service,
	FDA, FTC, FCC, NASA, NIH, NSF ....

would ALL be shuttered forever to balance the budget. Together, those departments and agencies of the government cost about $700 billion annually - about 1/3 of the Federal budget. What most of us understand as the day-to-day face of the Federal government is those agencies. For that reason, there is very little support for abolishing the Post Office (founded by Ben Franklin) or even NASA (a matter of national pride).

Since cut, cut, cut yields very little fat, that means someone has to feed those lean and mean operations ... unless you are truly willing to starve the Beast. Now, I have had a few acquaintances who are anarchists, and I suspect Libertarians and Survivalists are spiritually close to those who detest all government. Those folks are probably willing to dispense with almost all of the Federal government, but the other 95% or so of us are not. Moreover, the majority - even Southern rednecks - is unwilling to tolerate Congressional representatives who shut down the government (as Newt Gingrich was shocked to discover in 1995).

Thus, for Members of Congress who would like to keep their cushy jobs, Starve the Beast is not a reasonable project.

In reviewing David Brock's book, The Republican Noise Machine, I approved and supported his claim that conservative ideology simply contradicts the facts. (That's why they engage in costly, heavy duty propaganda to distort the truth.) The present looming crisis for Republicans is a result of irrepressible facts which contradict conservative ideology. American social, economic and political life is complex, requiring the services of a huge, ubiquitous Federal government to operate. In turn, that fact demands payment of taxes. So, the Republican house of cards crumbles.

Glimmer of Reality