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Julian E. Zelizer
Special report to CNN

Commentary: GOP's "small government" talk is hollow


PRINCETON, New Jersey (CNN) -- As the budget debate heats up, Republicans are warning of socialism in the White House and claiming that Democrats are rushing back to their dangerous tonic of big government.

Speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Rush Limbaugh warned that "the future is not Big Government. Self-serving politicians. Powerful bureaucrats. This has been tried, tested throughout history. The result has always been disaster."

On CNN, former Vice President Dick Cheney said he is worried that the administration is using the current economic conditions to "justify" a "massive expansion" in the government.

After the past eight years in American politics, it is impossible to reconcile current promises by conservatives for small government with the historical record of President Bush's administration. Most experts on the left and right can find one issue upon which to agree: The federal government expanded significantly after 2001 when George W. Bush was in the White House.

The growth did not just take place with national security spending but with domestic programs as well. Even as the administration fought to reduce the cost of certain programs by preventing cost-of-living increases in benefits, in many other areas of policy -- such as Medicare prescription drug benefits, federal education standards and agricultural subsidies -- the federal government expanded by leaps and bounds. And then there are the costs of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Federal spending stood at about $1.9 trillion in 2000, when Democrat Bill Clinton ended his presidency. In his final year in office, Bush proposed to spend $3.1 trillion for fiscal year 2009. President Obama's budget proposal for fiscal 2010 is $3.6 trillion.

Nor can Republicans blame a Democratic Congress for being responsible for these trends. Much of the expansion took place between 2002 and 2006, when Republicans controlled both Congress and the White House. The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes was writing about "big government conservatism" back in 2003.

Two years later, the right-wing CATO Institute published a report noting that total government spending had grown by 33 percent in President Bush's first term, lamenting that "President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson."

There were some areas where Bush backed off government cuts because programs were too popular, like Social Security. In other areas, like federal education policy and prescription drug benefits, the president seemed enthusiastic about bigger government.

Bush and Cheney also embraced a vision of presidential power that revolved around a largely unregulated and centralized executive branch with massive authority over the citizenry. This was a far cry from the days of Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, a Republican who constantly warned about the dangers of presidential power to America's liberties.

After the 2008 election, Cheney was not apologetic. He explained that "the president believes, I believe very deeply, in a strong executive, and I think that's essential in this day and age. And I think the Obama administration is not likely to cede that authority back to the Congress. I think they'll find that given a challenge they face, they'll need all the authority they can muster."

Importantly, the marriage between conservatism and a robust federal government was not unique to the Bush presidency. The roots of Bush's comfort with government can be traced to the Republican Right in the 1950s, members of Congress who called for an aggressive response to domestic and international communism.

Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon were two Republicans who pragmatically accepted that Americans had come to expect that the federal government would protect against certain risks and that trying to reverse politics to the pre-New Deal period would be politically suicidal.

"Should any political party," Eisenhower said, "attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history."

When Nixon and congressional Republicans battled with Democrats over Social Security between 1970 and 1972, the debate revolved over how much to expand the program. Congressional Democrats wanted to increase benefits through the legislative process, while Nixon wanted to index benefits so they automatically increased with inflation.

Nixon and Congress did both.

President Reagan backed off his most ambitious efforts to cut government, most dramatically when he abandoned his proposal to curtail Social Security after facing a fierce backlash, while the military budget boomed. President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, which was one of the boldest regulatory expansions of government since the civil rights laws of the 1960s.

All of these presidents, particularly Nixon and Reagan, likewise promoted a muscular vision of presidential power that strengthened the authority of government and introduced concepts, such as the unitary executive, which would become the intellectual underpinning of the Bush administration.

"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal," Nixon told David Frost in 1977. Like it or not, strengthening the presidency is one of the most important ways in which the role of government has grown since the nation's founding.

Fifty years of American history have shown that even the party that traditionally advocates small government on the campaign trail opts for big government when it gets into power. The rhetoric of small government has helped Republicans attract some support in the past, but it is hard to take such rhetoric seriously given the historical record -- and it is a now a question whether this rhetoric is even appealing since many Americans want government to help them cope with the current crisis.

Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. His new book, "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security -- From World War II to the War on Terrorism," will be published this fall by Basic Books. Zelizer writes widely on current events.



Comment from: laura@promediagroup.com

Folks: We must face the truth about our party before we can fix it. If you are looking for reading material to put our situation into historical perspective, I found this worth my time.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration,

Laura
A Republican who is a conservative



Comment from: JesseL@samtec.com

Amen… from a Libertarian who is really about small government…

I love Bush… he did a great job, but he and The Republican Party are so worried about their “big tent” party they are alienating true conservatives. Not everyone votes so if they would concentrate on US and those people who do not vote they would be able to fix things.

Also there should be requirements to be a “Republican”… if not met they should not be able to get party support… my 2 cents.

Jesse Love



Comment from: daveweb1@aol.com

Jesse and Laura,

You have hit on the major problem in the Republican Party right now: How to win back our Party. National GOP chairman, Michael Steele last week said he felt the decision about abortion should be a "personal choice." Our State Chairman, Murray Clark, in a speech to a Lincoln Day Dinner said he feels the GOP has focused on "social issues" too much. The Ninth District Chairman was just "replaced" (voted out) because he opposed the State's direction too much. The article we have just shared shows the too often truth about our Party........we say one thing but our leaders do another.

Now, I do not believe that the answer is to become Libertarians. Sarah Palin created such a fervor in the Party and brought Republican voters that had openly declared that they would not vote for any candidate to the polls because she represented their conservative values. The fight is on! And the fight isn't against the Democrats.....it's against moderates and liberals in our own Party. The absolute worse thing that can happen to our nation would be for the GOP to split or worse yet, for the conservatives to abandon the Republican Party. We need to take our Party back. We need to let our voices be heard to our Party's leaders that we want conservative values at our center again! Letters, emails and phone calls must go out to our County Officials, Party officials, our Governor and his staff, the National Chairman and every Republican official we have voted into office to let them know that we will not stand for this shift to the left.

This is OUR Party.......not the Party of the moderates and conservatives. We need to let them know that John McCain was a BAD CHOICE. We need to let them know that moderating on taxes, government size, social issues and conservative representation are not issues we intend to compromise on. Right now we need to be jumping into the fray and finding out which potential candidates for 2010 are truly conservative and which ones are not.

Laura, thanks for the email and the CNN article. I plan to post it on our website and post your comments Jesse. We need to take back our Party. I don't think that is needed in Floyd County, because we continue to push conservative ideals from the start. That was a central theme at last Saturday's Lincoln Day Dinner and with Becky Skillman's speech. We do need to focus our efforts on taking back the Party at the State and National level though. Come help us do that! Start letter/email writing campaigns to stir that up. Stir up others to help you in the effort. We absolutely must get busy now because the trend is already going in the wrong direction and pretty soon, all we will have left to do is cheer on Rush Limbaugh on a radio station. In the end, we might feel better, but that will not help us win elections with conservative candidates. Go for it guys!

Conservative in 2010,
Dave Matthews
Chairman, Floyd County Republican Party



Comment from: JesseL@samtec.com

We can afford to lose the liberal Republicans if we can gain real Americans who do not yet vote. The people I am talking to (mostly) do not vote… they are the untraceable, un- survey able, secret weapon if developed…

If a party was to stand on principle, and show that they are willing to sacrifice victory, and lose power… they could win these people. If the message was moral enough for Christians without alienating the “religiously undecided” we would win both.

Jesse Love



Comment from: Eric Schansberg


I think there are at least three related problems here:

1.) There are different types of “conservatives”. Often, those who are one type of conservative are lukewarm about the other types of conservatives. So, for example, it is rare for social conservatives to care very much about fiscal conservatism. As a group, then, it is difficult to hold the feet of elected officials to all of the relevant “conservative” fires.

2.) Most elected Republicans, at least at the federal level, are not philosophically conservative, libertarian, or anything else. When one’s views are not rooted in something significant, then they will “compromise” what they don’t see as core principles.

3.) It’s been amusing and sad to watch many Republicans complain about Obama’s economics when they had little to say about Bush’s. This reduces to politics over principle. It’s difficult to invoke principles when they’re not your highest priority.

Hopefully, Republicans in the 9th District will find someone who values both fiscal and social conservatism. Hopefully, Republicans in Congress will find conservative roots. Hopefully, Republicans will get their act together nationally—and find good candidates in 2012.

Enjoy!
Eric

Read Eric's blog at http://schansblog.blogspot.com




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Floyd County Republican Party - Floyd County, Indiana 2008
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Dave Matthews, Chairman
 

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