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Sunday, September 05, 2004
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GEORGE W. BUSH: LAST OF THE BIG GOVERNMENT LIBERALS
There was a time in the not too distant past when the Republican Party was self described as the party of smaller government, fiscal responsibility and a moderate foreign policy. Remember those days? These philosphies governed the party until the election of George W. Bush. All three are dead now.
The Republican Party under Bush is now in a frenzied competition with the Democrats over who can create the largest, most exprensive and intrusive non-discretionary spending programs. President Bush isn't shy or particularly sneaky about this either. Anyone who reads the first half of the President's acceptence speech to the Republican National Convention should notice that George Bush is well on his way to surpassing even the Great Society of Lyndon Baines Johnson in terms of domestic program spending. In a second term, he will fast approach FDR's New Deal level of spending and be remembered as the most activist president in history.
According to David Boaz of the Cato Institute, government spending went up a mind blowing 23.7% in the three and a half years of the Bush administration. While some of this is due to a resurgent military budget in the wake of 9/11, it only accounts for far less than half of the increase in spending.
In yesterday's New York Times, conservative commentator David Brooks went through, not disapprovingly, the laundry list of the President's spending proposals.
He's already gone a long way to transform the Republican Party. This was a party united by the idea that government is the problem, that it should be radically cut back. On Thursday night, Bush talked about government as a positive tool. "Government must take your side," he exclaimed.
He went on to propose a sprawling domestic agenda. Many of his proposals are small or medium-sized, and media rebutters have complained that not all of them are new (which is a ridiculous way to measure a policy idea). But cumulatively, they really do amount to something.
Bush proposes to build community health centers, expand AmeriCorps, increase the funds for Pell Grants, create job retraining accounts, offer tax credits for hybrid cars, help lower-income families get health savings accounts, dedicate $40 billion to wetlands preservation, and on and on and on
(.......)
The biggest proposals, which could really make history, were only hinted at. But Bush understands the crucial reform challenge: "Many of our most fundamental systems - the tax code, health coverage, pension plans, worker training - were created for a world of yesterday, not tomorrow. We will transform these systems."
In his speech, he redefined compassionate conservatism. The faith-based initiatives are now only a part of a much bolder whole. Bush declared that government should move energetically to help people get skills and to open opportunities. "Government should help people improve their lives, not run their lives," he said. That is the essence of the party's new governing philosophy.
This is a policy agenda that makes former Presidents Clinton and Carter seem conservative by comparison. As I noted, Bush is fast approaching Johnson and Roosevelt levels of activism.
Look at the speech. Think about what these proposals will cost. $40 billion here, $40 billion there, and pretty soon we're starting to talk about serious money. When President Bush took office there was a projected budget surplus of about $500 billion. Now there is an actual deficit of over $500 billion. In slightly less than 18 months, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has cost $200 billion and it is a daydream to suggest that American forces will leave before 2010. That could bring the cost of Iraq alone into the neighbourhood of a trillion dollars.
The president again restated his commitment to institute private Social Security savings accounts. Most observers agree that the transitional costs of this will total another trillion dollars over ten years. The prescription drug benefit to Medicare is now budgeted at half a trillion dollars. It should also be noted that tax cuts are government spending by different means. The 2001 and 2002 tax cuts equal another trillion dollars.
And the delegates to the convention couldn't cheer loud enough at all of this spending.
It should come as no surprise that if a Democrat were to propose such spending, a Republican candidate would ask how he intended to pay for it. Oddly, no Republican has asked the President this question. This is fortunate in that he has no answer.
For the first time in American history, a president is fighting not one, but two wars while actually decreasing government revenue and increasing domestic program spending. This is a formula for unimaginable economic disaster. The end result of this style of economic management is not recession, but depression.
On the bright side, history teaches that the sure cure for a depression is a big war. Unfortunately, American forces are currently so over-extended that there's no guarantee that an effective war could be fought, without anarchy consuming Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo. And wars in Iran and Korea are becoming more likely with each passing week.
The speech was not without its notes of irony. The President said "to create jobs, my plan will encourage investment and expansion by restraining federal spending..." One can reasonably ask when that restraint will begin.
Perhaps the most ironic moment, not only of the speech, but of the entire week, was when the President chided Senator Kerry's "conservative values."
My opponent recently announced that he is the conservative -- the candidate of "conservative values," which must have come as a surprise to a lot of his supporters. There's some problems with this claim. If you say the heart and soul of America is found in Hollywood, I'm afraid you're not the candidate of conservative values. If you voted against the bipartisan Defense of Marriage Act, which President Clinton signed, you are not the candidate of conservative values. If you gave a speech, as my opponent did, calling the Reagan presidency eight years of "moral darkness," then you may be a lot of things, but the candidate of conservative values is not one of them.
Proposing to bankrupt the most productive nation in human history doesn't exactly make one the "candidate of conservative values" either. Of course, John Kerry can't point this out because his agenda is just as fantastically irresponsible as the President's.
Conservatives have traditionally stood for freedom, both economic and personal. In advocating the largest government intervention in the economy since 1936, George Bush has demonstrated that he is not the candidate of conservative values. In expanding the government in ways that the most liberal of Democrats couldn't dream possible, George Bush has demonstrated that he is not the candidate of conservative values. In promising to impose activist judges to limit the reproductive freedoms of America's women, George Bush has demonstrated that he is not the candidate of conservative values. In pledging to save marriage from homosexuals who want nothing more than to be married, George Bush has demonstrated that he is not the candidate of conservative values.
To paraphrase the President of the United States, George Bush may be a lot of things, but the candidate of conservative values is not one of them.
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