How you know you are winning an argument with a liberal

You ever have an argument with a liberal about some ridiculously wasteful piece of government spending?

The conversations all go the same way. You point out that the country is broke and we simply can't afford to spend money like a drunken sailor even if the program/spending seems like a worthy cause. If something is not part of a core function of government then we need to have a very suspect eye towards that spending. Maybe you throw in some cautionary words about how it's against our national security to keep borrowing from China in order to pay for things we don't need, and "X" is something we clearly don't need so it's got to go. All pretty straight forward stuff.

And how do your liberal friends respond?

1) that's just a drop in the bucket and not enough to make a difference.
2) Well look at all the money Republicans waste on (Insert something liberals are against like the war or corporate welfare)

Consider those arguments for a moment. Are our liberal friends really saying that they approve of wasteful government spending in small doses? A few million here and a few million there will add up to real money pretty quick if we get serious about trimming waste. When you point this out to liberals they usually come back with, "Well we should focus on the big things first." That's almost as ridiculous. How are we going to get to a bipartisan consensus on cutting big things like entitlements and Social Security if we can't come to a simple agreement on something that is obviously small and wasteful? It defies common sense. In cutting spending, as in everything else, you walk before you run.

The second response is even more ridiculous. I hesitate to even call it an argument because it basically cedes that the current item is indefensible on its own merit and just seeks to change the subject. Do wasteful practices by someone else or under someone else's watch really justify continued poor stewardship of taxpayer resources? I've found that liberals really don't like answering that question. I generally tell them that I'm glad they agree with me and that I'm even more glad that they have ideas about other places we can impose some fiscal discipline.

Bottom line is that if a liberal ever tells you either of these two things in an argument about government spending, you've won. Liberals don't have any substantive arguments to make on reducing government spending because for most of them there is nothing outside of the defense department that they want to cut.

The truth about liberals is that they would rather raise taxes and continue to allow government to grow at the expense of the private sector. Of course, this would be a lot easier to swallow if they didn't raise these ridiculous objections to defend every wasteful, pork barrel project on the books.