Underestimating The Republican Congress

There's a lot to criticize the Republicans in Congress for, but their conservative critics are often ignorant of the good the Republicans have done or ignore it. Kevin Williamson makes some good points in a recent article:

In reality, there is much to be said for the piecemeal, muddle-through approach of congressional Republicans, who have a majority in both houses but not a large enough one to override a presidential veto, which makes inaction their greatest power. In 2011 the Obama-Pelosi-Reid model of government had federal spending up to nearly a quarter of GDP, a level of federal spending more typically associated with 1942 or 1946, when Uncle Sam was engaged in some rather more serious business than subsidizing cowboy-poetry festivals in Harry Reid’s backyard. After the Republican takeover, that figure went below 20 percent of GDP, which is still a great deal higher than is ideal but is within spitting distance of the average federal tax haul. That means that we have a plausible path to a situation in which federal spending is too high but the budget is balanced, rather than a situation in which federal spending is too high and there are persistent deficits. Neither is ideal, but one is better than the other, and responsible adults cannot ignore that.