To say western government is mortally hooked on spending is true, but not as true as another statement: western government is hooked on power, growing government-granted fiefdoms is how power is increased, and giving the fiefdoms more money is how you grow them. See the difference? The power is the point. Spending is just how you grow the power.
Why point this out? Because, when conservatives take the Texas government away from the ruling class there will be a decades-long heroin habit to kick. It will feel like Hell.
There are several forms of government fiefdoms. One is bureaucratic. Heads of agencies, commissions, departments (and every other name bureaucracies go by) measure success in only two ways: employees and budget. They are a success if these two things grow and they are a failure if they don’t.
Now, this is frustrating if you think about it with your taxpayer hat on, but imagine you have a friend who becomes the head of an agency. Number of employees and budget would seem a normal way to measure his importance of your friend. There is no focus on efficiency or performance. Laughably, these things are simply assumed.
And this is the struggle of our form of government. We must fight our natural tendencies when they endanger us, and they endanger us at several points. Our ability to salvage our form of government lies in the discipline to correct these things.
This “growth” culture is so entrenched that the very conservative movement that resides in Austin to change these things behaves identically. Think about it. Do communications entities need to grow to be effective? Research entities? Howard Stern has had the same sized team for pretty much his entire career and he makes more money than any talent in the history of communications. Rush Limbaugh has a conservative communications empire that doesn’t “grow” by adding people and budget. But the ruling class “growth” culture in capitol towns is sadly adopted by everyone.
Baseline budgeting is the backbone of government growth cultures. With baseline budgeting is last year’s expenses are always considered sacrosanct; the discussion is only about how much to increase the budget this time. One quickly sees how this is a party ill-designed to last forever. You can’t increase the amount of money and employees to an agency every time. If you try, the government will one day become so large that you can no longer pay for it. When it happens tin Greece and Spain we all get nervous and fidgety. When it happens in China and the United States we will all be horrified.
The point is this: conservatives must put our heroin-addicted Texas government in rehab, and the first 72 hours of heroin rehab look like the movie, ‘The Exorcist’. Conservatives must have the stomach to be hated by the patient for a time, and the relatives looking on must be assured that what is happening is ultimately the difference between life and death for the patient. If they do this they will go down in history as accomplishing a governance miracle in our time. Heroism isn’t dead as is popularly assumed, and this is what it would look like today.
And, actually, for conservatives there is no alternative to this approach for the simple reason that conservatives cannot be as good at trough-filling as the ruling class is and will therefore be hounded out of leadership by the bureaucracy if they try. See, the ruling class is wholly committed to the growth and maintenance of power, and trough-filling is how this happens. As a result, they are sixth degree black belt trough-fillers.
Conservatives can’t compete with the moral resignation and commitment the ruling class has as trough-fillers, especially not with the promises they’ve made to constituents and the commitments they hold dear. They shouldn’t try, and they don’t need to.
If conservatives go in naive, not knowing that the old way that is a cakewalk for the ruling class is a death march for them, their rule will be a wasted opportunity and a disaster. The bureaucracies will simply oppose the conservative leadership, make the state government into a complete mess, and the court journalists will hang it around conservatives’ necks.
A firm hand will be needed. Resolve will have to be proven. Private auditors will need to be hired to compare activities to mandates and to create efficiency. High-ranking heads will need to roll. In short, it will feel like the opposite of business as usual, which is exactly what patriots have begged for for years.
And it is exactly what the moment demands, that is, for any men or women able to meet the moment. Winning control feel not feel like a parade; it will feel like dope sickness. Go to a rehab center to get accustomed to how it will look and feel, if you need to. Only when the addict’s life is being put back together will you become a hero, the enduring kind