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Title: From Reagan's "Government Is The Problem" To Bush's "When Somebody Hurts, Government Has Got To Move."
Source:
New York Post
URL Source: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/43632.htm
Published: May 9, 2005
Author: RYAN SAGER
Post Date: 2005-05-09 02:49:35 by Uncle Bill
Keywords: "Government, Government, Reagans
Views: 74
Comments: 8
New York Post THE Republican promise of smaller, less-intrusive gov ernment 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.) Bush may have cut taxes, but that's not the same thing as shrinking government. And when government expands, as it has under Bush, taxes will eventually have to follow suit. And Bush's wild spending spree is no anomaly. To Karl Rove's way of thinking, it's the only way for the Republican Party to "seize the mantle of idealism" from the Democrats. As Rove told a conference of conservative activists in February, he believes the GOP has in the past been too "reactionary." Republicans have to be for things, not against them. They have to have "visionary goals." This, Rove said, means "reforming" the tax code, health care, pension plans, the legal system, public education and worker training; "building" an Ownership Society of homes and businesses; "preparing" Americans for meeting "the challenges of a free society; "building" a culture of life; "supporting" religious charities, and "fostering" a culture of "service and citizenship." If this isn't activist government — that thing conservatives used to be against — it's hard to say what would be. And it costs a lot of money, as Cato makes clear: * The budget for the Corporation for National and Community Service (which funds Clinton pet project Americorps) rose 76 percent from 1995 to 2005. * The Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which pays for job training for workers "displaced" by international trade, has almost quadrupled in size since 1995. * The budget of the Department of Education (not long ago on the GOP's short list for elimination) has grown by 38 percent in just four years under Bush. Congress is no innocent victim here — it's an accomplice. Under Clinton, the Republican Congress ratcheted down the president's spending proposals year after year, according to the Cato report. But, under a united Republican government, Congress has ratcheted up Bush's spending proposals (larding them with pork) by about $91 billion from 2002-2005. It's not always easy to see how radically Bush has transformed the GOP — from Reagan's admonition that "government is the problem" to Dubya's own assertion that "when somebody hurts, government has got to move." But it's a real transformation — and an expensive one. Average Americans will eventually feel it in the taxes that will have to be raised to fund Bush's massive federal expansion. Republicans who have stuck by the party's leadership mainly because of the War on Terror will begin to feel it in 2006 and 2008, when they realize that Big Government Conservatism is not a strategy or a philosophy — but a sellout. E-mail: rsager@nypost.com COMPASSIONATE SOCIALISM: The Ideology Of George W. Bush ARE MONETARY AND BANKING CRISES INEVITABLE IN THE NEAR FUTURE? DON'T COUNT ON WASHINGTON TO PROTECT US FROM A LOOMING BANKING CRISIS To Abraham Lincoln: "Sir: We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. From the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class,"
GOP: PARTY OF BLOAT
By Ryan Sager
May 9, 2005
Karl Marx - Source.
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#1. To: christine (#0)
What Reagan said (which sounds good) and what he did, are two different things. Reagan was still a Repub, (the party of oppressive lincolnite gov't). Reagan opened the door to neo-cons. Reagan was a deceiver who convinced the Christian right to get involved in gov't through the Repub Party.
That's a fact and gets a big AMEN from me.
.... But, in order to render the success more certain, it will be of special moment to give the most plausible and popular name that can be found to the power that is to be usurped. It may be called, for example, a power for the common safety or the public good, or, "the general welfare." If the people should not be too much enlightened, the name will have a most imposing effect. It will escape attention that it means, in fact, the same thing with a power to do anything the government pleases "in all cases whatsoever." ......-------.......------ in one word, between the general mass of the people, attached to their republican government and republican interests, and the chosen band devoted to monarchy and Mammon. Uhh ... this appears to be a "conspiracy theory" in progress ... and I have been trying so hard to quit thinking like this ... Socialist Security is the "general welfare" funding vehicle, and has become so adored by Americans that they don't even realize they are for the most part "CARD CARRYING SOCIALISTS" ... wherein the many plunder the many for the benefit of the few ... Who is this "CHOSEN BAND" devoted to monarchy and mammon ???
"When somebody moves, government has got to hurt" could just as easily apply with all the internal checkpoints and national ID procedures being established. Big Brother used to just be watching. Now he wants to kill you or at least harass you so badly you'll envy the dead.
As always, this is a throughly excellent article, Uncle Bill.. You're tops.
#2. To: OKCSubmariner (#1)
#3. To: Uncle Bill (#0)
From Reagan's "Government Is The Problem"
#4. To: CWRWinger (#3)
What Reagan said (which sounds good) and what he did, are two different things.
#5. To: Uncle Bill (#2)
Rules for Changing a Republic into a Democracy and then into a Monarchy - By Organizing the New Nation, THE ANNALS OF AMERICA, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1784- 1796
#6. To: Uncle Bill (#0)
#7. To: CWRWinger (#3)
#8. To: Uncle Bill (#0)
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