Filler: Beyond political caricatures

Lane Filler is a member of the Newsday editorial board.

It wasn't so long ago that people had strong beliefs about governments and money, and spoke honestly about them.

That this time has passed was brought home again last week during an interview with soon-to-depart Metropolitan Transportation Authority head Jay Walder, who made one seemingly obvious point: Either the money comes from somewhere, or the trains aren't going anywhere.

Walder was talking about the fact that the MTA has $10-billion worth of projects that aren't funded. He said the agency, under him, has made cuts that will save about $4 billion over five years. That there is still some silly and hard-to-stop spending is undoubtedly true; an example he offered, that workers get an extra day's pay when they operate both electric and diesel trains during the same shift, is enough to make one simultaneously weep and start a website called public

unionsmakemescream.com.

"But if people think we'll pay for all this by trimming more and more fat, it's not true," Walder said. "Cutting can only do so much, and in the end you can't get $10 worth of service out of $8 in funding."

The political debate used to reflect this.

On the one hand, you had folks who said, "I work hard for my money, and so does everyone else who has some. The government needs to keep its hands to itself and people going hungry or homeless need to get off their lazy butts and get jobs, or learn to enjoy empty bellies and the outdoors. The sick and the elderly should count on families and charities. It's wrong to make me foot their bills. I need my money to pay off my ski chalet, and the second boat."

We called that conservatism.

In the other camp you had those who declared, "We need to soak the rich -- any person who has more than us -- and make them pay enough so that everyone has access to food, clothing, shelter, transportation, child care, education, health care, lawyers, hemp clothing and, at the bare minimum, basic cable. It's immoral to let the rich eat their caviar and butchered baby seals off platinum plates while the poor go without. The government needs to even things up."

We called that liberalism.

Say what you will about the logic or morality of either of those positions: They are, at least, real philosophies.

But when the Newsday editorial board listened to about one jillion politicians in endorsement interviews before last fall's elections, it found almost no office seeker, from any party, who was willing to admit to such positions. No one wanted to slash programs. No one wanted to raise taxes. Their only answer, regardless of party, was "cut the waste, fraud and abuse."

No one, except of course for wastrels, fraudsters and abusers, would disagree. But being against these things is not a political philosophy, it's a cop-out, one as visible in the populace as the politicians.

The old political conflict worked because each side got the rational half of what it wanted. Liberals got high taxes on those who could afford it; conservatives saw to it that the federal government didn't go overboard in the services it offered its citizens. The result was a (mostly) balanced budget and a sustainable society.

Thanks to modern, magical thinking, we now have low taxes and extensive services. No one, not even the "extremists" in the made-for-TV squabbles over the debt limit, is suggesting serious hikes in taxes or hacks to entitlements.

Liberals no longer demand taxes high enough to pay the bills. Conservatives no longer demand services limited enough to shrink the taxes.

We're all just praying to the Waste, Fraud and Abuse Fairy, hoping we'll find a sustainable government under our pillow.