It really is about government’s size.

“If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred million dollars of revenue increases. . . The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates[, just asked] to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures.”

--David Brooks, New York Times

Nominal Republican Brooks, who looks ever more like someone from the New York Times newsroom’s progressive hothouse, calls Obama’s “deal of the century” the “mother of all no-brainers.” But Brooks is pessimistic, because Republicans don’t accept “the logic of compromise,” nor do they accept “the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities.”

This is the Brooks we encountered earlier this year, when he lamented the passing of power from a certified elite to clueless masses. I won’t knock Brooks, for his traditional conservative views do fit with our Democratic elite, who believe in rule by the credentialed. And no surprise Brooks implicitly sides with Obama’s effort to make the rich pay their “fair share,” since noblesse oblige is a conservative virtue.

More importantly, Brooks shifts the focus away from government’s overbearing size, this election’s signal Republican issue—freedom v. government. Brooks instead sides with government, enlightened ones running the show, wise rule by philosopher kings. Top-down authority. Traditional conservativism. Today’s liberalism.

At the same time Brooks was going after Republicans in the New York Times, over at the Washington Post, conservative-leaning Robert Samuelson was uncorking his own “straw man” argument against Republican leaders:

Conservatives have become radical by seeking "drastic political, economic or social reform." Their obsession with tax cuts when even today's taxes don't cover today's spending implies radically shrinking government programs that are woven into America's social fabric. . . Since 1971, federal taxes have averaged about 18% of GDP. There is no believable plan to reduce federal spending below that level, even with sizable cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits. So promises of more tax cuts either border on dishonesty or imply huge unspecified spending cuts that would devastate national defense, states and localities, and the poor. . . Republicans won't concede the necessity for higher taxes.

Samuelson is attacking a “straw man.” Spending is at an unsustainable 25% of GDP. Republicans want that spending back down to its historic 21% of GDP, a Herculean task under current circumstances, but a worthy objective. They are not advocating “tax cuts” as a way to get there. Conservatives do, however, strongly oppose tax increases, firmly believing such increases will inhibit the economic growth that best boosts revenue.

As we said, Democrats very much want tax increases on the wealthy. They are desperately trying to save big government by changing the subject, a cause both Brooks and Samuelson abet by wrongly attacking Republican budget cutters.

I give Samuelson a lot of credit, however. Even with his whack at Republicans, he correctly reads today’s political war:

We are now engaged in a messy debate over big budget deficits and the size of government. The struggle nominally pits liberals against conservatives, but this is misleading. The real debate involves reactionaries versus radicals. Many liberals are reactionaries. [emphasis added]

A reactionary is someone who, says Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, desires "a return to an earlier system or order." This defines many liberals. They "pine," writes Michael Barone in The Wall Street Journal, for "the golden years of the 1940s, '50s and early '60s (when) ... Americans had far more confidence in big government." Modern liberals want yet-bigger government to enhance social justice. They defend virtually all Social Security and Medicare benefits. Everything can be financed, they suggest, by cutting defense or increasing taxes on the rich.

But cutting defense and taxing the rich won’t raise enough money. Progressivism is out of options, at the end of its road.