Washington’s new divide: Paul Ryan Optimists vs. Rand Paul Federalists

[Geee]

Washington Times:

On May 16, Senate Democrats continued their three-year-old tradition of failing to pass a budget. But not before voting down four Republican budget plans, plus the Obama budget, which received the special honor of being dispatched unanimously. The real news? The increasing support for the budgets offered by two men named “Paul“: Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, and Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican.

The Ryan budget was defeated, 58-41. The bolder Paul plan, by a more definitive 83-16.

The relative popularity of the two is less important than the fact that both fiscally conservative budgets received more votes this year, an election year, than they did 12 months ago. Despite being savaged by the left. And Mr. Paul’s support more than doubled, from 7 “yeas” to 16.

These “defeats” feel like the sort you find in the first chapter of a victory narrative.

Indeed, we may be witnessing the beginnings of a new era, in which the dividing line is not between conservatives and progressives, as much as it is between two kinds of conservatives, whom I call “managerial optimists” and “constitutional realists.” Or to put it more provocatively, between “Paul Ryan technocrats” and “Rand Paul federalists.”

This new fault line, while faint today, could open into a chasm, should the Republicans get a chance to govern next year.

While the “federalists,” who include the staunch Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), are numerically smaller, they are growing in confidence and will likely grow in numbers, too, after November. They could very well form a “majority within a majority,” steering the entire Senate, and nation, rightward.

Both the technocrats and federalists want government to be smaller, more efficient and less intrusive. Both want to make entitlements more affordable and taxes fairer. But the technocrats want to achieve these goals by streamlining and modernizing government programs, while the federalists want to do it primarily by eliminating programs and decentralizing government power.