Biden makes big government feel inevitable

Biden's second happy circumstance is the fact that Americans have spent four years becoming acclimatized to colossal federal spending. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic began, the last administration was not fiscally conservative. Trump presided over more deficit spending in his first three years ($2.4 trillion) than former President George W. Bush did in eight ($2 trillion). Had he won a second term, Trump could have topped the deficit spending of the Obama administration, too. Then the pandemic hit, and $1+ trillion packages became a new norm. This year, the Congressional Budget Office projects a budget deficit of $2.3 trillion, and a public which ostensibly worries about the national debt simply shrugs. Biden's timing is fortuitous. He's not letting this crisis go to waste. Trump's rejection of constraints on federal spending and authority also paved the way for Biden in an ideological sense. The pre-Trump GOP constantly betrayed its limited-government principles; the post-Trump GOP hasn't got any. Republicans might pantomime fiscal conservatism if their fundraising staff believe it will play well in this month's direct mail, yet if Trump had proposed the American Rescue, Jobs, and Families Plans, we all know most of the congressional GOP would have loyally lined up to vote "yes." There are exceptions, sure, but just as there is no faction in Washington which combines real power with a durable, principled antiwar stance, so there is no faction with real power and a nonpartisan commitment to small government.