Posted on 08/24/2005 11:06:51 AM PDT by rob777
You could walk into most fast-food restaurants not long ago and order a small, medium, or large soda. Now it seems that the smallest soda you can buy is a medium and the options for large sodas are either extra large or "super-sized." That also seems to be the choice most voters face nowadays. They used to be able to choose between the Republicans (the party of small government) and the Democrats (the party of big government). After looking at the budget record of President Bush and the Republican Congress, it seems the only choice voters have anymore is between two political parties that have only slightly different preferences over how big government should be.
Despite the rhetoric of the president and Republicans in Congress, the actions of the GOP on the budget reflect a political party that is not at all serious about making government smaller. Once upon a time, Republicans pledged to eliminate entire Cabinet-level agencies. For instance, the House budget passed in the wake of the historic electoral victory of 1994 zeroed-out the departments of Education, Energy, and Commerce. More than 200 federal programs were set to be terminated. Of the 101 largest programs that were initially killed by Republicans, all but nineteen have risen from the dead. The combined budgets of these living dead programs have grown by 27 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1995.
During the past four years, President Bush has presided over the largest inflation-adjusted increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson -- and that does not include the skyrocketing costs of the new Medicare drug benefit that the president loves to brag about. The size of the federal government has grown from 18.5 percent of GDP -- where it was on the day Bill Clinton left office -- to 20.3 percent of GDP today. The 33 percent growth in the budget during Bush’s first term is about as large as the growth of the budget during Clinton's entire presidency.
What happened? Some argue that most of this spending is driven by increased defense expenditures required to fight the global war on terrorism and to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is true that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, made anti-terror spending a budget priority. Yet, when you strip away spending on defense, homeland security and entitlement programs and adjust the rest for inflation Bush still ranks as the biggest spending president in 30 years -- only Nixon is a bigger spender. Bush actually outspends Johnson by this criterion.
What has happened during the Bush presidency so far is that Republicans have resorted to a guns-and-butter philosophy of budgeting: instead of cutting low-priority programs to make room for high-priority spending they have urged increases in everything. Every president of the past 40 years other than Johnson and Jimmy Carter offset real increases in non-defense spending with real decreases in defense spending, or vice versa. The GOP has reversed this historical norm.
Bush's new budget does very little to change this situation. While it does include reductions in non-defense programs to make room for increases in defense spending -- 154 domestic programs would either be eliminated or cut -- Bush's budget knife does too little slicing in overall terms. The cuts and program terminations amount to a miniscule fraction of total federal spending: they equal only 0.3 percent of the overall budget. And not a single Cabinet-level agency will be smaller in real terms than it was at the beginning of Bush's first term. Every president of the past 40 years found at least one agency to cut during his administration.
Congress is likely to increase spending even more, just as it has done every year since 2001. In fact, if Congress had simply rubber-stamped Bush’s budget proposals every year, taxpayers would have been saved from footing the bill for an additional $91 billion in non-defense programs from 2001 to 2005. Instead, Congress piled more largesse into the budget bills and Bush refused to veto any of them.
Perhaps former President Clinton is correct and the era of big government is indeed over. Thanks to the GOP, taxpayers are greeted with the prospect of something far worse: the era of super-sized government.
You said,
"Can't refute his points, so you call him a troll. Point out where the article is inaccurate, please"
Well, since you asked me to, I checked the statistics published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on July 29, 2005.
The BEA reported that for 2004:
GDP was $11,734 billion
Total government spending (federal, state and local) was $2,216 billion
And FEDERAL spending was $827 bilion.
This means that FEDERAL spending as a percent of GDP in 2004 was 7.05%, NOT 20.3% as alleged in the article. I do believe that's a "point" for me.
BTW, total government spending as a percent of GDP in 2004 was 18.89%. This percentage may be compared with the figure from 2002: 18.73%.
Agreed, with the proviso much of that spending is simply wasted.
Sorry, this is not a solution. No third party, not even one that had a Ronald Reagan as its President could defeat the socialists in Congress. There were solid reasons why Reagan changed from being a Democrat and became a Republican. Only the Republicans can defeat the Democrats.
It is the Republican party that We the people must change. After labor day when people are back from vacations and starting to tune more to politics, there will a series of articles posted here that will offer a way to move Republicans substantially to the right. We can take our country back and the Republicans are going to do it for us.
If anything WE are the ones being bashed. Patriots who want to enforce laws that the government wont enforce are called "vigilantes" by Bush. This same leftist term is used by the commie lawyer Morris from SLPC who took that mans ranch away on behalf of some illegals.
Then, when the base was rumbling about the potential of Gonzales being picked for SCOTUS, we were told to quiet down.
Only three and a half billion more, not counting the GDP increase. Who said it, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
Who said it, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
Everitt Dirkson was given credit for it, but there is a question as to whether it can be verified or not.
BFLR = Bump for later reading.
Bush got 47.87% of the voters in 2000 and 50.73% in 2004. That's not enough for a revolution, so there won't be one. If Reagan couldn't pull it off, there's no way Bush could.
"Revolution" can be a distraction from what needs to be done. The problem is that Bush hasn't done what he could do -- use his veto, not increase budgets, not propose new programs -- to keep spending under control.
So I guess we need a watch-dog group to keep track of our Republican "big spenders", so we confront them with their wastrel ways during the primaries
watch dog ...hmm .. I thought the party was the watch dog.
I want to know what good the party really is?
We collect money , then give it to whom ever agrees to put an r by their name.
The local party should be able to decide if someone can run on the ticket.
To avoid the process of getting names on a petition to get on the ballot, many polititions simply run under the party lable that they think gives them the best chance to win.
If party rules were somehow available to give the local party the option of telling someone NO .. you cant run on our slate , then we might be able to get rid of some of the rinos ..
"It may be huge, it may be Super-Sized, but since we control it, we like it!"
How is it that "we" control it. I haven't noticed my Republican representatives doing much of anything conservative. They do what the party leadership tells them and that ain't why I voted for them.
I was just paraphrasing the logic of the Kool-Aid drinkers.
"However, once that bill was on his desk, it WAS necessary that President Bush sign it."
How come? He could have vetoed it because of the pork and sent it back for another try.
He has yet to veto anything, hence the skyrocketing spending.
If you will surf over to "www.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/gdpnewsrelease.htm" you will see in Table 1B the figures I was working with.
These figures were issued 8/23/2005 -- which suggests they are more accurate than the figures you used, which preceded the BEA fugures by several months. But I think there is no need for us to debate whether the CBO or the BEA is "more accurate", because YOUR second link (to About.com) makes my point very well.
We should agree that Table 6 at your link shows that "federal government spending" (however that is defined by the CBO) was 19.8% of GDP in 2004.
That table also shows that the LOWEST percentage of GDP consumed by "federal government spending" during the Reagan presidency was 21.2%.
This confirms my view that your hyper-concern about excessive government spending during the Bush presidency lacks perspective.
Although I agree that are far too many wasteful government projects being funded and I think its a great shame that the "line-item-veto" was disallowed, I also think that, given that GWB is spending comparatively LESS than President Reagan, "panic" is not the proper emotion for us Republicans to be feeling now.
If you will surf over to "www.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/gdpnewsrelease.htm" you will see in Table 1B the figures I was working with.
These figures were issued 8/23/2005 -- which suggests they are more accurate than the figures you used, which preceded the BEA fugures by several months. But I think there is no need for us to debate whether the CBO or the BEA is "more accurate", because YOUR second link (to About.com) makes my point very well.
We should agree that Table 6 at your link shows that "federal government spending" (however that is defined by the CBO) was 19.8% of GDP in 2004.
That table also shows that the LOWEST percentage of GDP consumed by "federal government spending" during the Reagan presidency was 21.2%.
This confirms my view that your hyper-concern about excessive government spending during the Bush presidency lacks perspective.
Although I agree that are far too many wasteful government projects being funded and I think its a great shame that the "line-item-veto" was disallowed, I also think that, given that GWB is spending comparatively LESS than President Reagan, "panic" is not the proper emotion for us Republicans to be feeling now.
You said,
"These jerks have been telling us, "Just put us in power, and we'll take our country back to limited, Constitutional government that spends less and intrudes into your life less." Well, we did, and they spent more and intruded more."
It's just my opinion, of course, but I think the road back to "...limited, Constitutional government..." passes right through the Supreme Court. As long as we have activist liberal judges RULING, for example, that New York State MUST increase "educational spending" by raising taxes and RULING that environmental "concerns" can STOP any free-market-driven economic process or development and RULING that the goofy free-speech suppressing McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Bill IS "constitutional" and RULING that illegal aliens are entitled to same legal protections (or more!) as American citizens, our freedoms are at risk.
This opinion leads me to say that I think it would be short-sighted for Republicans to forsake the needs and wants of "middle America" NOW in order to achieve some sort of "orthodox" ideological purity NOW -- and, as a consequence, return to minority party status BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT IS DE-LIBERALIZED.
I remember that part of Ronald Reagan's "genius" was that he rejected the historical pattern: "Democrats increase spending; Republicans increase taxes." IMHO, Reagan's un-orthodox rejection of "balanced budgets" planted the seeds for the Congressional majorities that we have now (albeit with too many RINOs).
I think that, if political compromise NOW leads to a political majority, with the potential to add enough new Republicans to overcome the RINOs and ULTIMATELY make some much-needed changes in the Courts, the Departments and the Agencies, then I am all for political compromise NOW.
I should also mention that even "wasteful" government spending adds jobs to the economy. If the Democrats' fondest 2004 campaign wish -- that GWB had been the "only-job-losing President since Herbert Hoover" -- HAD been granted, then, instead of seeing President Bush nominate Judge Roberts to replace Justice O'Connor at the US Supreme Court, you might have seen President Kerry nominate Senator Kennedy for that pivotal seat.
I apologize if I spoiled your dinner with that image...
LOL!
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