[credit_guy]

The basic idea of this essay is that politicians are liars. Republicans say "smaller government", yet the government doesn't shrink. Democrats say "out of Iraq", yet the troops are still there.

I actually think by and large politicians try to deliver on their promises. Democrats: healthcare, gay (and minority) rights, increased social safety net. Republicans: less immigration, lower taxes, less regulation. Overall, Democrats tend to reduce military spending (or keep it below the trend for the rest of the budget), while Republicans tend to increase it.

It is true that none of the parties is making a serious effort to balance the budget. But that's a genuinely hard thing to do from a political standpoint.

[CountSessine]

I agree, but I also think that voters have contradictory desires. Fulfilling the promise of smaller government is hard when even your own red-team voters won’t support you on the particulars. Want to abolish the dept of housing and urban development (as many republicans want to)? The problem is that at the state and local level, even in red states, public housing is considered a necessary evil and getting federal money for it is preferable to having dirty homeless people urinating on the sidewalk. Want to spend even more money on public housing? Everyone, even democrats, fear the bond markets and their opinion of govt debt, so you’re stuck raising taxes, which a broad majority of voters are against. Moreover, public housing is deeply unpopular with a majority of voters who live in suburbs and don’t want to live near poor people. Voters SAY they want smaller government but what they want is lower taxes and fewer government services for other people. Voters SAY they want visible minorities to be safe from discrimination, but they want those minorities to live far away from them in different neighborhoods.