Those who think Bush is starting to look a lot like some Democrats when it comes to flinging taxpayer money around, haven't heard the half of it.

Many congressional Republicans are also settling nicely into Standard Washington Operating Procedures.

Depressing, to say the least. Knowing that Democrats would be worse in power is not much consolation.

I'm wondering if the 1994 Republican victory was the beginning of a very short window of opportunity for the real conservatives to actually roll back the government juggernaut before their power started to corrupt them. Some really good talents quit, or decided not to run again in following years. I had a lot of hopes for J. C. Watts, for example.

Here is the original Contract With America. Some damn good ideas there. Somehow, I don't think anything like this is going to come from the current Republican Congress.

So it goes, I guess. Washington and our electoral system tend to select for those who play the game.

As the article says:

F.A. Hayek warned decades ago against the dangers of a creeping corporate welfare state: "As the coercive power of the state will alone decide who is to have what, the only power worth having will be a share in the exercise of the directing power."

P. J. O'Rourke said it more simply, "When buying and selling are controlled by the legislators, the first things to be bought and sold are the legislators."

The obvious solution is separating government from commerce in the same way and for the same reason it is separated from the church, but don't look for that to happen any time soon.