The era of Big Government Republicanism is here, the Washington Post reports, effectively scrapping the now-outmoded vision of Newt Gingrich and other Republicans for shrinking the size of government.
And, the Post reports, there is some concern among Republicans over the new mega-federal direction in which their party is racing:
President Bush’s second-term agenda would expand not only the size of the federal government but also its influence over the lives of millions of Americans by imposing new national restrictions on high schools, court cases and marriages.
In a clear break from Republican campaigns of the 1990s to downsize government and devolve power to the states, Bush is fostering what amounts to an era of new federalism in which the national government shapes, not shrinks, programs and institutions to comport with various conservative ideals, according to Republicans inside and outside the White House.
Indeed, but you’d never know that listening to the talk shows (we listen to both sides since TMV drives a lot). It is still repeatedly said that the GOP wants to reduce the size of government and get it out of citizens’ lives. The evidence laid out by the Post indicates that is not true anymore:
Bush is calling for new federal accountability and testing requirements for all public high schools, after imposing similar mandates on grades three through eight during his first term. To limit lawsuits against businesses and professionals, he is proposing to put a federal cap on damage awards for medical malpractice, to force class-action cases into federal courts and to help create a national settlement of outstanding asbestos-related cases.
On social policy, the president is pushing a constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage in the states and continuing to define and expand the federal government’s role in encouraging religious groups to help administer social programs such as community drug-rehabilitation efforts.
If you applied this agenda to the human body and likened it to Preparation H which is designed to shrink you-know-whats and the above is how it shrunk it, that company would be sued out of business.
According to the Post, the administration’s idea is limited but active government:”White House officials see Bush’s governing philosophy as a smart way to modernize the government, empower individuals and broaden the appeal of the GOP.” But some conservatives aren’t buying it.
“He keeps expanding the federal involvement into state and local affairs,” said Chris Edwards, a tax and budget expert at the Cato Institute, a think tank that often supports the president’s agenda. “My hope would be that there would be an electoral rebuke of big [-government] Republicans like there was when the tectonic plates shifted in 1994.”
Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), said: “The Republican majority, left to its own devices from 1995 to 2000, was a party committed to limited government and restoring the balances of federalism with the states. Clearly, President Bush has had a different vision, and that vision has resulted in education and welfare policies that have increased the size and scope of government.”
So “smaller government” is now effectively a kind of campaign verbal bumper sticker that sounds nice but doesn’t hold up if you look at the actual facts. Even so, the party faithful will quickly adapt to its leaders’ philosophy and the Democrats seem too incompetent to turn this shift into an actual debating point. Besides: Democrats want more government intervention and they’ve already lost the argument (by virtual default) over whether government involvement is in itself undesireable.
UPDATE: The phrase “Conscience of a Conservative” will be tested even more with news that a new estimate of the cost of the Medicare drug benefit’s cost is $720 billion in the next 10 years – almost twice what Congress thought the cost would be:
The Bush administration offered a new estimate of the cost of the Medicare drug benefit on Tuesday, saying it would cost $720 billion in the next 10 years. That is much more than the $400 billion Congress assumed when it passed legislation creating the benefit in late 2003.
But administration officials said the numbers were not comparable. The original estimate was for the years 2004 to 2013. The new estimate covers the period from 2006, when the drug benefit becomes available, to 2015.
The higher figure, which provides the first glimpse of the true cost of the drug benefit, could touch off a political uproar in Congress, where conservative Republicans were already expressing alarm about the costs of Medicare, including the drug benefit.
–GWB tells a voter that holding down three jobs is uniquely American. (Should this be subtitled:”I do NOT feel your pain.”?)
–The Social Security issue is going to be fascinating to watch. The White House may have to turn it into a big generational issue since are increasing signs that the senior population is facing a new, less stable financial reality. The New York Times reports many seniors are returning to work as they see their medical and dental beneifits withdrawn — and others switch to “less generous retirement plans…”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.