I don’t usually find myself in agreement with a Washington Post editorial, but today’s editorial titled Big-Government Conservatives makes some excellent points.
THREE TIMES in the past quarter-century, conservative leaders have promised to restrain wasteful government spending. President Ronald Reagan tried it and showed he was at least half-serious by vetoing the pork-laden 1987 transportation bill. House Speaker Newt Gingrich tried it and risked his party’s electoral standing by battling to restrain the growth in programs such as Medicare. And President Bush has tried it, declaring on numerous occasions that he expected spending restraint from Congress. None of these efforts proved politically sustainable. As The Post’s Jonathan Weisman and Jim VandeHei reported Thursday, Mr. Bush’s attempt at spending discipline has been especially limp.
Limp to say the least. If the Al Gore or John Kerry were President right now and the Democrats controlled Congress, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the rest of the conservative machine would be decrying the “tax and spend” policies coming out of Washington. Instead, its a Republican President and Congress doing it and only the Editorial Board of the Post seems to be noticing it.
The nation is at war. It faces large expenses for homeland security. It is about to go through a demographic transition that will strain important entitlement programs. How can this president — an allegedly conservative president — believe that the federal government should spend money on the Red River National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Louisiana? Or on the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan? The bill Mr. Bush has signed devotes more than $24 billion to such earmarked projects, continuing a trend in which the use of earmarks has spread steadily each year. Remember, Republicans control the Senate and the House as well as the White House. So somebody remind us: Which is the party of big government?
Ouch.
Again, I ask, what’s a libertarian to do ?
