In the fourth volume of his masterful biography of Lyndon Johnson, The Passage of Power, Robert Caro makes an interesting observation about the congressional budget fight of 1963.  Caro, a liberal himself, notes approvingly, "Liberals wanted a larger role for government, wanted bigger, and new, government social welfare programs and therefore a larger budget."  This much hasn't changed.

What has changed is the way liberals scheme to fund those programs.  "They believed," writes Caro casually, "the $11 billion tax cut would, by putting more money into people's pockets, stimulate the economy and thereby increase tax revenues, and the money government would have available for these programs."

Caro presents this position not as controversial, but as axiomatic.  Would that there were more honest liberals like him.