The Era of Super-Sized Government

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.

OK. We agree on the goal.

It follows that any differences we may have relate to the "means" to get to the goal.

IMHO, to get to the goal we need to elect more "real" Republicans, so we can tame our activist judiciary. As an example, imagine what the following Supreme Court ruling would do to the U.S. Department of Education:

"Public Education is not a Federal matter. All educational funding and educational policies are reserved to the respective States and to the subdivisions thereof."

Poof! A leaner, less intrusive Federal government!

If we assume, for the sake of discussion, that you would like to abolish the U.S. Department of Education, what means would you use to do that?

"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."

Republican does not mean smaller government. That's obvious. If you are interested in smaller government, you'll have to look elsewhere. The two major parties are both big government parties.

The two party system:

Republicans = The party of big government
Democrats = The party of even bigger government

Yeah, we basically agree on the outline. I don't think putting Republicnas in the majority is ever going to do it, though.

Bush was presented in 2000 as the small government, pro-Constitution candidate. Ok by me. I voted for him. Almost straight ticket Republican that year.

So we get the tax cut. Bravo. I'm very happy, and I think he's a great guy.

9/11 happens. The guy is strong, I mean strong. And then what does he do? The "patriot" act. Reactionary legislation that DOES damage the Bill of Rights. And people around here (who would have screamed bloody murder if Janet Reno had asked for the same legislation under the same circumstances) are cool with it. I'm thinking, what?

So already by that point I'm having some serious buyer's remorse. I really disliked Clinton for reactionary gun legislation and other anti-Constitutional activity. And now Bush has followed with a reactionary piece of legislation that will take generations to get rid of, if it ever is gotten rid of.

And then the budget starts going up. And up. And up. And not just on war things. On pork things. And he doesn't veto anything!

More and more states elect Republicans. And they start with new smoking bans, safety laws, raising taxes, and everything else the dems did when they were in power.

Bush's supreme court nominee. He doesn't even support your rights to be protected against searches on the highway with no reasonable suspicion. You might have drugs on you or something, so let's just have a look around. And by the way, your papers, please. Let's see that national ID.

So I'm left to think Republicans don't act like Republicans much. We can call a few of them RINOs, but what about the rest? And abolishing the Department of Education? Only if there's a hell of a lot of pork for their respective states in the bill, along with a new even bigger department to replace it.

I don't think the Republicans are going to get us where we want to go. And I KNOW the dems aren't. I don't think a third party has a chace, granted. But that's not enough to keep me from voting third party, and hasn't been in a few years. I'm tired of plugging my nose to vote for the lesser of two evils and then kicking myself when the newly elected candidate turns out to be a big government nanny statist.

But don't get me wrong, I still do like Republicans like you that still believe in smaller government. And I like it here. At the very least, there's intelligent debate and still a lot of people that think the way I do. And I hope you're right about the Republican party turning it around. And if you are, I may consider voting that way again.

Agreed.

Good discussion.

Another way a less-liberal Supreme Court could help would be by reversing its position on the Line Item Veto, which was declared "unconstituional" in 1998.

As a result, it seems the President faces the same "hold-your-nose" choice you do, each time Congress sends him a bill.

For example, the new Energy Bill is full of waste, but it DOES restart our nuclear energy program and DOES reduce the power that enviro-nazis have exercised to block any energy project that would reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
In my opinion, GWB was right, when he signed that pork-laden bill into law.

Hmmmm...

This raised a new thought. Do you think that our lushly-funded enviro-nazi groups might be getting some of their "walking-around-money" from the Arabs?

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