Welcome, Conservatives!

Ideology is a supple instrument, especially in the hands of conservatives. We know, all of us, in our bones, that the most bedrock principle in the conservative firmament is that low taxes are always and everywhere good. Except, you know, it was only invented as a bedrock principle the day before yesterday [1] (before then the "principle" was that balance budgets are always and everywhere good; you should hear how the right squealed over JFK's tax cut proposal in 1963!). In England, Tory prime minister Stanley Baldwin responded to the Great Depression by immediately ordering up socialist-style nationalization of industries and capital controls, without a second thought; "small government" simply wasn't a principle baked into the tea cake of British "conservatism."

The one ideological constant: conservatism doesn't do contrition. But I'll take it. They're on board. As Ronald Reagan loved to say, "There is no left and right. Only up and down."

"Government is not the solution; government is the problem"? Yesterday, in the Washington Post [2], former assistant secretary of the Treasury Emil Henry called the kind of New New Deal we're calling for here at CAF alongside hundreds of prominent economists, activists, and public officials [3] pure and simple Reaganism. How's this for Owellian: "Conservatives should stay true to the Reagan legacy in the coming infrastructure debate. Unimaginative adherence to a historical orthodoxy that ignores economic realities and global competition may simply extend the Republican stroll in the wilderness."

Conservatives of the Weekly Standard vintage, of course, have long had a love affair with big-spending government; before they discovered Iraq, they had "national greatness conservatism," which was all about building big stuff. So William Kristol cries Small Isn't Beautiful." (His heart's desire is bigger and better military bases; all the "schools and airports" he's visited lately, he says, "seem to be to have been refurbished more recently.") David Brooks has been able to make the pirouette [4] to complaint that the only problem with Obama's stimulus dreams is that they're not "imaginative" enough. (His solution: suburbs that work more like cities. He cites neocon geographer Joel Kotkin for backup; when last we heard from Kotkin on this humble blog he was celebrating the exurbs—"the de facto headquarters of the American dream" [5]—as an unmitigated good. Patio Man, we hardly knew ye." [6])

I, for one, thank God for conservative flexibility. In 2009, it will be the hand-maiden of center-left consensus.