Conservative Advocate: How conservative is Bush?
The disgruntled mutterings about President Bush in conservative circles are getting too loud to ignore. From National Review to The Heritage Foundation, not to mention such libertarian redoubts as The Cato Institute, the grumbling is reaching impressive levels. It doesn’t (yet) amount to outright rebellion. The protesters are still on board for November; few of them are seriously threatening to stay home on Election Day and let John Kerry waltz into the White House. But it is fair to say that, in the opinion of many serious people, the integrity of the conservative movement as we’ve known it is at stake.
Just how far has President Bush strayed from the conservative mainstream? Last September in the National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru counted the ways:
“Bush has increased the federal role in education, imposed tariffs on steel and lumber, increased farm subsidies, OKed federal regulations on campaign finance and corporate accounting, and expanded the national-service program President Clinton began. Since Sept. 11, he has also raised defense spending, given new powers to law enforcement, federalized airport security, and created a new Cabinet department for homeland security. No federal programs have been eliminated, nor has Bush sought any such thing. More people are working for the federal government than at any point since the end of the Cold War.”
And that was even before Bush pushed through Congress a Medicare reform law that is the greatest new entitlement in several decades.
Bush’s defenders have just about given up pretending he is implementing traditional conservative principles. Instead, some of them, like Daniel Casse in the February issue of Commentary, have begun arguing that Bush has offered “a very bold, and very ambitious, reordering of conservative priorities.” He cites Michael Barone’s contention that Bush has replaced “the conservative touchstones of small government and spending cuts with the bolder, more inspirational ideas of choice and accountability” — to which Casse would add support “not for big government but for strong government.”
All this may well be true, and it is only fair to add that many of Bush’s steps in the direction of bigger government (notably the Medicare and education bills) include reforms that, if they can be built upon, should greatly improve the performance of those programs.
Still, a widely circulated Office of Management and Budget chart showing the percentage increases in discretionary domestic spending reveals just how far President Bush has wandered from fiscal discipline:
— Lyndon Johnson, 1965-69, 4.3 percent
— Richard Nixon, 1970-75, 6.8 percent
— Gerald Ford, 1976-77, 8.0 percent
— Jimmy Carter, 1978-81, 2.0 percent
— Ronald Reagan, 1982-89, 1.3 percent
— George Bush, Sr., 1990-93, 4.0 percent
— Bill Clinton, 1994-2001, 2.5 percent
— George W. Bush, 2002-04, 8.2 percent
Historically, one of the chief things the Republican party and the conservative movement have had going for them is the public belief that they are financially more responsible than their opponents, and less inclined to expand government. If Bush squanders those assets, he will bear a heavy responsibility for the future fates of the party and the movement.
No wonder many conservatives are ill at ease. There is probably still time — though just barely — for Bush to make policy corrections that will signal his continued allegiance to the basic principles of traditional conservatism. Unless he does, he may win the next election at the price of presiding over the political destruction of the conservative movement.
William Rusher is a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.