Stephen Moore writes in National Review on how the government can actually cut spending and bring some fiscal sanity to the federal government.

It used to be that Republicans had an excuse for runaway budgets: They didn’t control the purse strings. Now the bloated spending is on their watch. In their decades of dominance, Democrats changed congressional processes to enhance their policy goals. Republicans have so far failed to do the same. Unless their talk about smaller government is so much eyewash, they should embrace this budget reform.

Currently, the deck is stacked against those who wish to reduce expenditures and/or cut taxes. The lesson from the states is that budget rules that deny lawmakers the power to spend and tax recklessly can be quite effective deterrents to fiscal irresponsibility.

The Democrats did a much better job of putting in a structure that perpetuated a growing federal government. Unfortunately, we haven’t heard much from the Republicans about cutting government since the mid-nineties when they were still in the minority position in the house. Now that they are the majority in both House and Senate, there is no move to actually cut government power and spending.

Veronique de Rugy also writing in National Review makes the point that special interest groups and the media are going to scream if Congress does reduces the rate of spending increases (they call these smaller spending increases “cuts”, and talk about how your grandmother will be thrown into the street). So, since they are going to complain anyhow, go ahead and make real cuts. You might as well get something for your grief.

Here are some of the suggested cuts.

Abolish the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and Commerce. Make cuts in the Departments of Defense and Homeland security to get rid of waste and inefficiency. Reform Social Security and Medicare.

Not bad for a starter. I wonder what we could do after we get warmed up with those cuts?

Republicans should be bold. It does not matter how big proposed spending cuts really are — $2 billion or $300 billion — because the media and the Democrats will go into a contrived panic no matter what. Republicans may as well get some real government in for the criticism. We know the media isn’t serious, but we can’t take the administration seriously either if they choose $2 billion worth of “cuts” rather than $300 billion.

Unfortunately, these ideas are not coming from the Bush administration. There is little support for them in Washington D.C. from either party. Government is not going to stop growing larger every year any time soon. But it is encouraging that some people are actually thinking and writing about how we could cut government. We can always dream.