Vetoing spending as a record
In the 2010 episode “A Better America,” Bob Zadek asked former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson about the line of attack his opponent, whom Johnson identified as the Mayor of Albuquerque, used against him in his second-term race. Johnson said the attack was that he had said no to state government spending, describing it as spending from A to Z and saying he vetoed everything A to Z. He said he wrote a veto message for every veto he rendered, and that in many cases the message read that the idea was a great one he would love to sign and thought would make a difference, but that there was no money to do it. He said there were quite a few vetoes in that category. A Better America (2010)
Zadek framed that record as a refreshing attitude for a chief executive: to say the government cannot afford something. He argued that the question is never whether a spending initiative will help someone on the merits, since taking money from one person to give to another is always assured of the beneficiary’s vote, and that ignoring the adverse effects of spending makes any program look like a good idea. What requires maturity and integrity in government, in his framing, is saying that notwithstanding the merits, the money is not there. A Better America (2010)
The same episode opened with Johnson’s argument that eliminating the federal Department of Education would do more to improve education than any other single act, on the claim that the federal government supplies about 11 cents of every dollar states spend on education while attaching about 16 cents worth of strings. Zadek added that the 11 cents was taken from residents of the states in the first place, so the money would otherwise have gone directly from citizens to states rather than making a visit to the federal government. A Better America (2010)
Fiscal conservatism and social tolerance
In the 2011 episode featuring Nick Gillespie, editor of Reason.com and Reason TV, the discussion turned to self-identified independent voters. Gillespie said the general impulse of the independent movement is broadly libertarian, and that it resembles the Tea Party in being fiscally conservative: it wants a government that does not spend more than it brings in, and it worries about debt and about spending more on programs that deliver less. He added that these voters are also socially tolerant, citing gay marriage and mixed-race marriage as issues on which public attitudes have shifted and which people no longer treat as political battlegrounds. Nick Gillespie – The Voice of Reason (2011)
Gillespie described the fiscal side of that impulse with examples. He said that California, in the middle of the past decade, doubled and tripled down on benefits for state workers and expanded state programs as soon as it had money, and he cited a redevelopment agency in California that spends billions of dollars and has nothing to show for it. At the federal level, he said spending since 2000 has increased in inflation-adjusted dollars by something like 65%, and he compared the result unfavorably to a furniture-buying spree: a shopper who runs up credit card bills at least has furniture to sit in, whereas the spending binge produced no equivalent. He characterized the independent voters’ response as saying that the credit card is maxed out and being chopped up. Nick Gillespie – The Voice of Reason (2011)
Gillespie tied the label to a broader political moment. He said libertarian means believing in a government that is small but efficient, does a few things very well, and then leaves people alone, and that this does not make one a right-winger. He argued that the country is in the beginning of a libertarian moment, in which people recognize that all available money has been spent without reaching the desired destination, and that taking fiscal responsibility together with social tolerance is the way forward. Nick Gillespie – The Voice of Reason (2011)
Across episodes
The two episodes approach fiscal responsibility from different offices rather than developing a single argument. Johnson speaks from the experience of a governor wielding a veto and answering an electoral challenge; Gillespie speaks as an editor describing a bloc of voters and the fiscal record of states and the federal government. The earlier treatment is a first-person account of refusing spending item by item; the later treatment is a diagnosis of why voters are demanding the same refusal. The excerpts show no exchange between the two positions and no later episode revisiting Johnson’s veto record or Gillespie’s spending figures.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state what became of the spending disputes either guest describes, nor do they give a bill number, a budget total, or a case name for any of the vetoes or programs mentioned. Johnson’s veto messages are quoted only in paraphrase, and the excerpt of his discussion of entitlement reform and the debt crisis breaks off before he develops it. Gillespie’s figures for federal spending growth and for arts philanthropy are given as approximations and are not sourced within the excerpts.