Posted on 08/03/2006 8:33:37 AM PDT by Small-L
Reagan Revolution architect calls it 'era of obese government
Federal spending under the Bush administration has grown five times larger than that during the second term of the Clinton administration, charges a conservative Republican activist in a new book that paints the president as a traitor to his party.
In "Conservatives Betrayed," Richard Viguerie, credited with being one of the architects of the Reagan Revolution, says George W. Bush has set the stage for the punishment of his party by voters.
Viguerie compares spending by the federal government, adjusted for inflation, during the Clinton years vs. the Bush years. In Clinton's first term, federal expenditures rose 4.7 percent. In his second term, they rose 3.7 percent. In the first term of the Bush administration, however, spending rose 19.2 percent.
"If ever there was a case for divided government, here it is," writes Viguerie. "The lesson for many Americans is that today's Republicans cannot be trusted with the keys to both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government."
No matter how you slice it, Viguerie says, Bush makes Clinton look like a spending piker by comparison. For instance, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University in New York keeps records that show how much the federal government spends on average each year for each person in the country. When this standard of measurement is used, the comparison between the two administrations is even more pronounced.
Cumulative growth in federal expenditures, adjusted for inflation, during the Clinton years actually shrunk by 1.1 percent. Yet, in the Bush first term, it rose 15 percent.
"During President Bush's first five years in office, the federal government increased by $616 billion," Viguerie writes. "That's a mammoth 33 percent jump in the size of the federal government in just his first five years! To put this in perspective, this increase of $616 billion is more than the entire federal budget in Jimmy Carter's last years in office. And conservatives were complaining about Big Government back then! How can Bush, (Dennis) Hastert, (Bill) Frist and company look us in the eye and tell us they are fiscal conservatives when in five short years they increased the already-bloated government by more than the budget for the entire federal government when Ronald Reagan was assuming office?"
Another standard of comparison offered by Viguerie is discretionary domestic spending, adjusted for inflation.
"When we strip away defense, homeland security and entitlements and adjust for inflation, leaving only discretionary domestic spending, George W. Bush has grown the federal government at a faster pace than Lyndon Baines Johnson," Viguerie writes. "His record for profligate spending is outmatched (for the time being) only by another Big Government Republican, Richard Nixon. And when Bush's second term is over, there's every reason to expect that Bush will hold the record as the president who's grown the federal government at its fastest pace in modern times."
The numbers?
* Johnson: 4.1 percent
* Nixon/Ford: 5 percent
* Carter: 1.6 percent
* Reagan: 1.4 percent
* Bush I: 3.8 percent
* Clinton: 2.1 percent
* Bush II: 4.8 percent
Viguerie compares the modern presidents on the use of the veto, too. While Johnson used the veto power 30 times, Nixon 43, Ford 66, Carter 31, Reagan 78, Bush I 44 and Clinton 36, Bush didn't use it at all in his first term and has used it just once – for a non-spending issue – in his second term.
"Bush apologists give the excuse that it's harder to veto bills that are passed by your own party," Viguerie writes. "Yet LBJ and Carter each cast 30 or more vetoes while their own party controlled Congress. In fact, the all-time master of the veto was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He used the veto power an incredible 636 times during his four terms – despite having a Democratic Congress with majorities as lopsided as 75-17 in the Senate and 333-89 in the House! Congress overrode his vetoes a mere nine times."
Yet another formula for measuring presidential fiscal responsibility, according to Viguerie, is rescissions. Reagan used rescission power to rescind funds authorized by Congress. Ford rescinded $7.9 billion in spending. Carter rescinded $4.6 billion, Reagan $43.4 billion, Bush I $13.1 billion, Clinton $6.6 billion.
But George W. Bush has not rescinded even $1 in congressional spending.
"The best illustration of the corrupting influence of power on the Republicans is the explosion of pork-barrel spending projects since 2000," says Viguerie.
Viguerie points to a 121 percent increase in pork-barrel earmarks in the first five years of the Bush administration.
"The size of the federal government is the single most important barometer of the health of the American republic," writes Viguerie. "When domestic federal spending goes up, it's a surefire indicator that something is wrong. And the way spending has been increasing under the Bush administration and the Republican Congress shows that things are seriously wrong."
Clinton didn't have 9/11, widescale war, or Katrina/Rita either. Bush is getting more of a bad rap than he should on this. Not that he's perfect, but he has had some heavier things happen than Clinton did.
I love how WND resorts to using the Bush I and Bush II monikers just like DU'ers would to prove their points.
Lets make sure we blame the proper people for excessive federal spending. The majority among the American voting public LOVES government spending, and the more the better. Until that changes, we're going to continue to have a choice between Republicans' excessive spending increases and Democrats' excessive, extreme and out of control spending increases.
I'd like to see a comparison of how federal spending went up under Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Reagan and Bush. That would be comparing apples to apples.
My Congessmen are home for the next few weeks and having town meetings--you can bet they're going to get blasted for abandoning their campaign promises of smaller government and fiscal constraint.
On November 8th there's going to be a lot of gnashing of teeth and fast talking trying to explain why the base didn't come out to vote--maybe they should look at their record.
Also, as much as I loved Reagan, I find it comically ironic for someone from his admin. to criticize others for spending!
Uh, if you take out the war, katrina etc, Bush is still spending much much more than Clinton did, but nice try to spin this. Why is it so hard for the Bush supporters to realize he's not the guy we thought he is? He's a big spending big government spender that just happens to like conservative Judges and partial tax cuts. He's like his dad, who was no conservative and had to change his views to become Reagan's VP. Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave.
I would like to point out that the crop of Pubbies under Clinton were fired up to control spending, this current batch are drunken sailors with the Skipper's wallet.
Bush has some faults, not all the fiscal irresponsibility falls on him though. In fact not even most of it.
I credit the small growth under Clinton, 100% to Newt Gingrich.
You may need to lay off the kool aid for a while. Thr Republicans are spending money like drunken sailors.
Frontpagenews, I'm disappointed in you. You ought to know better:—CONGRESS spends money, NOT the Administration. And for the moment, Congress is CLEARLY more liberal now than it was in 1998, (R) to (D) ratio notwithstanding.
Our prescription of increased democracy in the political process ie:
direct election of senators,
no more closed committee sessions,
campaign finance "reform",
gutting of both political parties,
increased access to congress,
and more are what have ended any hope of actually reducing the size of government. Just look at what the freshman class of '94 was actually able to accomplish riding the wave of popularity after their induction in '95; virtually nothing. Of the 300 or so odd programs that they intended to cut or eliminate, they were left with just under twenty after all was said and done. It's easy to blame Bush, but the real culprits are...(drum roll please)the American Sheeple! We are the ones who consistantly allow the rollback of our republic into something approaching direct democracy, and this is the result.
The only real solution is to put the budget and tax process into the hands of a body that would send both bills to congress for an up or down vote, no amendments; something like the base closing commissions. Otherwise, no rep or senator is going to stick their neck out, and risk re-election with the number of powerful lobbies out there.
you are absolutely right.
It seems to me that if we're going to have to increase spending on 9/11, Wot, and hurricane relief, that we would be looking for programs to cut other spending, not building an indoor rainforest in Iowa.
No you can blame the war spending on Clinton too. He and his co-president Hitlary helped bring it into reality.
I said he wasn't perfect. However, if you look at some of the largest expenditures, that's where they are coming from. You can't lay it all on the entitlements (which I do disagree with). We've had some bad stuff happen in this nation the past several years.
Clinton so depleted the military budget that President Bush, faced w/a war on terror, HAD to spend billions to get the military equipped to fight the war on terror.
Is the bogeyman democrat I don't know any worse than my current representative. Why exactly do we need a Republican Congress again?
"If ever there was a case for divided government, here it is,"
Gridlock, the last hope for the US taxpayer.
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