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We Won't Respect You in the Morning

May 9, 2005, 11:25 am

Again, small government libertarians like myself, who held their nose and voted Republican in the last election, have been used.  From the NY Post today:

THE Republican promise of smaller,
less-intrusive government is getting harder and harder to believe.
Especially when a more plausible plot line is unfolding every day: that
the GOP has put aside the ideals of Reagan and Goldwater in order to
pursue a political strategy based on big spending.

For the latest, check out a report just released by the
libertarian Cato Institute that tells a striking story about just how
out-of-control spending has gotten under President Bush.

Cato finds that:

* Bush has presided over the largest increase in federal spending since Lyndon Johnson.

* Even excluding defense and homeland security spending, Bush is the biggest-spending president in 30 years.

* The federal budget grew from 18.5 percent of the Gross
Domestic Product on President Bill Clinton's last day in office to 20.3
percent at the end of Bush's first term.

Add to that Bush's massive Medicare prescription-drug
benefit, expected to cost $720 billion-plus over the next 10 years.
(The money for that new entitlement, the first created by a president
in a generation, will start flowing this year.)

It is not in the least bit comforting to have my suspicions confirmed by Cato, whose whole report is here.  Bring back divided government!  I will take Reagan-Democrat Congress or Clinton-Republican Congress over this any day.

 

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Category: Politics
  • Scott

    Kerry, while he would've made a God awful President, is exactly what big and small L libertarians needed last Fall. None of his big initiatives would've passed, and only the "strongest" Republican bills would've been signed. Washington is a libertarian nightmare at this time.

  • http://gsruminate.blogspot.com GSR

    This report is certainly an indictment on single party power and control. I'm with you; more opposition would at least bring some restraint to this completely out of control spending spree. We'll be paying these bills for a long time to come.

  • http://www.halfsigma.com Half Sigma

    I'm beginnning to buy into the idea that divided government gives Republican politicians much greater incentive to push their small government philosophy.

    The theory is based on the very cynical notion that politicans don't have any real beliefs, they only do what they think will get them elected. I used to foolishly believe the Republicans believed the small government stuff, but their actions these days are proving that I was wrong to believe tham.