Exploring the GOP’s Small Spending Lie : It isn’t really about the size of government. It’s about who gets what on the political food chain.

It’s a line that brings sure-fire applause. “We’ve spent $5 trillion on welfare since 1965,” drawls Phil Gramm, “and the problems have only gotten worse.” Sounds outrageous, but it’s hardly the whole story. For example, since 1960 we’ve spent close to a trillion dollars subsidizing home ownership for upper-income Americans, and these people are still on the dole.

If you’ve joined Gramm in not questioning these upper end subsidies via the mortgage interest deduction, chances are you’re an unwitting accomplice to today’s big Republican lie about the budget. The GOP deserves credit for moving the national debate forward with a concrete budget plan that constructively engaged the President.But you can’t help but be cynical when Republicans claim to believe in “smaller” government. Even casting the debate as big vs. small is a charade. The best rough measure we have of the size of government is how large aggregate federal spending is compared to the overall size of the economy, or gross domestic product. Over the next seven years, Republicans would spend 19.9% of the GDP. President Clinton’s plan would spend 20.8% of GDP during that time.

Can this 1% spending difference truly constitute a revolution? Republicans may not want to stake so much on small differences, lest they be forced to admit that Clinton has rolled back spending to 21.9% of GDP, compared to Ronald Reagan’s 23.2% or George Bush’s 23%.

If we all agree it makes sense to balance the budget at about 20% of the GDP, the real issue becomes: What should government be doing at a size everyone thinks is about right? It’s here that some truly shameful Republican trade-offs emerge--choices that fair-minded Republicans should be uncomfortable defending.

Consider: In the Republican vision of government spending at 20% of the GDP, Americans with incomes above $100,000 remain entitled to $40 billion annually in health and Social Security benefits (giving them back far more than they paid into the system), but children in poverty can no longer be guaranteed a floor of support. The IRS will continue to pick up half the tab for corporate meals and entertainment, but thousands of poor kids must give up their subsidized lunch. The federal government will increase by a third, to $15 billion, its annual housing subsidies through mortgage interest deductions to people earning more than $100,000, while cutting back sharply on rental assistance for the poor. Why these priorities?

“It’s a sin to help people who ought to be helping themselves,” House budget chairman John Kasich helpfully explained to “60 Minutes.”

At 20% of the GDP, the Republicans will keep defense contractors happy by funding 92% of our Cold War levels of Pentagon spending a decade after Russia’s own defense outlays have dropped by two-thirds. Meanwhile, research, education and infrastructure dollars that underpin economic growth will be cut more than 20%. And tiny programs that provide some access to quality services for the millions who can’t afford, say, cable television or pricey lawyers--namely, public television or the Legal Services Corporation--are decimated or cut out altogether. At the same time, diversionary media bait, like eliminating the Commerce Department, snares its prey every time. Despite the headlines praising such Republican “downsizing” (they actually plan to move more than half of the Commerce Department somewhere else), the annual savings won’t match 15 days’ worth of new tax breaks that favor those already well-off.

The Republican vision of government might more accurately be dubbed “bigger” for well-to-do subsidy recipients, defense contractors and corporations, and “smaller” for more vulnerable Americans. Of course, the size and intrusiveness of government can’t be measured by spending or subsidy alone. There’s regulation, which some Democrats want to increase on business, and moral mandates, which some Republicans want to expand in our private lives.

You could also count federal employees, which leaves Democrats ahead, since Clinton has stood up to federal unions and shaved an unprecedented 272,000 bureaucrats after Reagan and Bush actually added to the federal rolls.

It’s true that the President’s plan also leaves welfare for the well-off largely untouched, but he’s not simultaneously proposing deep cuts in programs serving the vulnerable. It’s this trade-off that makes the current GOP blueprint so questionable, and exposes their “small” government claim as a charade.