The fine feathered folks over at the Cato Institute chronicle the rise of Big Government Conservatism:

President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years. His 2006 budget doesn’t cut enough spending to change his place in history, either. The GOP was once effective at controlling nondefense spending.

The icing? How far Congress has fallen since the Gingrich Revolution:

The Republican Congress has enthusiastically assisted the budget bloat. Inflation-adjusted spending on the combined budgets of the 101 largest programs they vowed to eliminate in 1995 has grown by 27 percent.

This isn’t conservatism. It’s corruption.

(via Andrew Sullivan)