Politics & Power Quote by Chris Chocola

Spending becomes the decoy, and competence the real battleground. Chris Chocola’s line is engineered to sound post-partisan: who, after all, is pro-waste? But the rhetorical move is sharper than it looks. By rejecting “how much we spend” as the “only measure,” he doesn’t actually dismiss cost as a concern; he demotes it just enough to claim reasonableness while keeping the door wide open to argue for smaller government. “How well we spend” is an elastic standard: it invokes efficiency, accountability, and managerial skill, yet it never specifies whose definition of “well” is in play or what tradeoffs are acceptable when outcomes are uncertain.

The subtext is a critique of crisis politics, the familiar Washington ritual where big price tags are treated as evidence of seriousness. Chocola flips that script: seriousness is process, targeting, and results. It’s a fiscally conservative argument that avoids sounding like austerity by offering a moral upgrade - not less care, just smarter care. That framing is especially effective in eras of ballooning deficits, emergency appropriations, and headline-grabbing stimulus packages, when voters suspect they’re being asked to underwrite someone else’s inefficiency.

It’s also a defensive line for officials who anticipate being accused of stinginess. If you oppose a spending bill, you can position yourself as the adult in the room: not indifferent to the problem, just unwilling to confuse expenditure with effectiveness. The ambiguity is the point. “Well” can mean data-driven programs, private-sector delivery, strict oversight, or simply “not this bill.” The quote functions as a political Swiss Army knife: pragmatic on the surface, ideological in its leverage.