Peggy Noonan has it Right

From this mornings Opinion Journal:

Money is power, more money for the government is more power for the government. More power for the government will allow it to, among many other things, amuse itself by putting its fingers in a million pies, and stop performing its essential functions well, and get dizzily distracted by nonessentials, and muck up everything. Which is more or less where we are.

She goes on to quote the USA Today:

Yesterday USA Today ran a front-page story that seemed almost designed to give every conservative in America a Grand Klong, a fanciful medical condition that has been described as a great onrush of fecal matter to the heart. Not because it was surprising but because it wasn't. The headline: "Federal Aid Programs Expand at Record Rate."

The text:
A USA Today analysis of 25 major government programs found that enrollment increased an average of 17% in the programs from 2000 to 2005. The nation's population grew 5% during that time. It was the largest five year expansion of the federal safety net since the Great Society created programs such as Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960's. Spending on these social programs was $1.3 trillion in 2005, up an inflation-adjusted 22% since 2000 and accounting for more than half of federal spending.

Enrollment growth was responsible for most of the spending increase, with higher benefits accounting for the rest. The paper quoted a liberal think tanker saying the increase in the number of people on programs is due to a rise in the poverty rate. It quoted a conservative congressman countering that entitlement programs should not be growing when unemployment is near record lows.


Thanks, W.