George Will and Apostacy

George Will's column in today's Post is a must-read. He discusses a growing controversy in Colorado, where Republican governor Bill Owens is under fire from anti-tax groups for daring to talk sense on fiscal matters. Owens is backing a referendum this fall that would suspend mandated revenue surplus rebates for five years, a necessary measure to prevent drastic and unpopular cuts to education and other important programs in the near future. Owens, rightly, fears that if those budget cuts are forced upon the state, voters may turn against fiscally responsible budget planning in the future.

Anti-tax groups, however, are outraged that Owens would back this referendum ... which, by the way, would not raise taxes, it would merely suspend rebates. Will writes "[t]hose now calling Owens an apostate from the church of conservatism need to answer two questions. Is one deviation from doctrinal purity sufficient grounds for excommunication? Is a political creed that is so monomaniacal about taxation that it allows no latitude for tacking with shifting fiscal winds a philosophy of governance or an ideological fetish?"

The second question there is key. Are the anti-tax crowd who hold so much sway in GOP circles really concerned with good government, or are they just obsessed with lower taxes? The two are not necessarily the same thing in every circumstance, and the sooner Republicans at every level of government recognize this, the better off we'll all be.