This is a very strange argument Ross is making. Is it really up for dispute whether conservatives favor a smaller government in principle? Which is to say, if all else were equal, would any conservative not accept a 4% cut in the size of government (as measured through GDP)? But would any liberal -- all else being equal, which is to say no increase in services or programs -- accept a 4% increase in GDP?
Of course not. Indeed, it looks like Ross is insulted by conservatism's most prominent victory: the bias towards the free market, and against the government. It's fine to uphold smaller government as an ideal, but not larger government. That's not a knock against conservative ideologues, but an admission that they've, in many ways, won the day. Socialism has no shot in this country because, even in areas where all the facts and all the theories and all the needs point towards robust government involvement (I'm thinking, you'll all be surprised to know, of health care), the bias keeps the political discussion focused on private solutions.
Now, what Ross is objecting to, and I think conflating with the government question, is Jon Chait's insistence that liberals look at things on a more case by case basis than conservatives. As Ross argues, the right thinks the government should run the military, so they do make their exceptions. True enough. But that, I think, is largely the point. The right's small government ideology is so triumphant that it can be upheld despite the occasional diversion. The politics favor the ideology even when the policy doesn't. The left has no such recourse, they can't retain a singular ideology (more government!) and then diverge when it suits them; they have to freshly argue for their position on every successive issue. That's why, I'd guess, folks think Democrats don't know what they stand for. You can't have message discipline when you seldom repeat the same message.
