Yep, Grover, you've lost. Everyone here knows your famous quote, or should.
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
Remarkable. Breathtaking.
Impossible to do.
It's not your fault, though, Grover. God knows you've tried. It's just a couple of things that are standing in your way that no amount of political sleaziness, budgetary finagling, and Republicanism can bypass.
Allow me to explain.
Problem #1: Government will always grow.
Yes, always. Has from the moment ol' George took office all the way up to when your good buddy Chimpy redid his oath, and it won't go down.
First off, that population just keeps on growing. About 10% a decade. 10% every decade needing more of those basic services that the government provides. 10% every decade putting miles on those federal highways, putting kids in public education, using those public parks, using interstate commerce, buying Japanese DVD players, German automobiles, and lord knows what else.
You can't beat it, Grover. You'd have to close the borders and do like China with kidraising to even BEGIN to encounter negative population growth. And after you do that, go talk to your friends in the fundamentalist wing of your party and explain that one. I'd loan you a bulletproof vest, if I thought it would help.
Wait, I hear you now. "Well, we'll just cut all those government programs! No more Social Security, no more Medicare and Medicaid! Just National Defense!" Oh, Grover, getting desperate this quick isn't good for you. This is great theory, but it runs into Problems 2 and 3.
Problem 2: You've got humans running the show in Congress.
Now, if you had preprogrammed robots, you might have a chance of getting a budget like that passed. But you don't, Grover. You've got a few hundred humans there, and regardless of which party they belong to, they share one irritating habit that put a crimp in your plans. What's that?
Well, they like to get reelected. And no one ever got reelected without bringing home goodies for the home crowd. Heck, if you're good enough at that, voters will forgive you anything - your affair with a 15 year old, your brief affiliation with the KKK, even your horrid drug habit. If you're any good at getting bennies out of the Federal treasury, Congresscritter is a job for life - and name someone who hates job security.
But even if you could suborn them into doing your bidding, Grover, it wouldn't work. Why not? Problem #3.
Problem #3: Voters LIKE big government when it works for them.
Oh sure, some of them make noises about 'Welfare cheats this' and 'Corporate welfare that', but when it comes down to what's in their pocketbook, they hate folks that take money out of it. That's why, when you attempt to cough REFORM cough Social Security, the AARP is able to come up with 38 million voter types who think it's a BAD idea, while you're able to muster up a couple hundred picture thieves.
Folks like free money, Grover. Even if it's not direct moolah, they like it when the roads are paved, when the planes run on time, when every one of a hundred little things that they ordinarily don't think about get done because a few hundred Congresscritters set up a program to run it. Start taking it away and you'll run into Problem #2 in a BIG hurry.
Nice try, Grover. Brave words. But ya lost.
(/end semiinspirational diary)