After last week’s big election losses, Karl Rove, bush’s Machiavellian political adviser, engaged in a bit of advanced preparation towards the 2008 elections.
Time magazine’s Mike Allen wrote:
“Despite this week’s repudiation of the GOP, Rove said he believes the party can still achieve a long-term majority. “I see this as much more of a transient, passing thing,” he said. “The Republican Party remains at its core a small-government, low-tax, limit-spending, traditional-values, strong-defense party. I see the power of the ideas, even in a tough year.” He added that he has “fundamental confidence in the power of the underlying agenda of this President,” and cited fighting the war on terror, entitlement reform, energy, tax cuts, immigration reform, No Child Left Behind reauthorization, democracy agenda in the Middle East, reducing trade barriers, spending restraint and legal reform.” (Emphasis added)
Rove is probably correct in assuming the majority of Americans are ignorant and unattentive enough to still buy into the Republicans “small government” mystique.
Let’s us real advocates of SMALL GOVERNMENT examine some of Rove’s “small government” false claims and be prepared to expose what is perhaps Rove’s biggest of big lies.
“Small Government at it’s core…” …and each succeeding layer belies…?
Future of Freedom Foundation’s Jacob Hornberger asks:
“How many departments were abolished when Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress?”
“How many agencies?”
“How many spending bills were vetoed?”
“How many pork-barrel projects were jettisoned?”
“How much was federal spending reduced?
The answers, as we all well know, are ZERO. So if The Republicans are champions of “small government”, then we would have to assume the government was small enough when bush came to power, right?
Wrong! It would have to be assumed that our “small government” Republican heros assessed the magnitude and influence over our lives of the government they inherited, and concluded that the “big government” Democrats that preceeded them had somehow, in their boundless incompetence, managed to allow the government to get too small!
So in order to achieve an appropriate state of “smallness”, according to the Brookings Institute
“…the government’s largely-hidden workforce created through contracts and grants has reached its highest level since before the end of the Cold War.”
Towards the salubrious end of bringing the government up to it’s proper level of “smallness”, no doubt.
Low tax? Not if you’re part of the middle class, as pointed out in a N.Y. Times editorial from March of last year:
“As recently as 2000, only about one million taxpayers owed the alternative minimum tax…But by the time Americans file their 2005 taxes, some 3 million taxpayers will owe the alternative tax and by 2010, nearly 30 million taxpayers will be hit…”
Or perhaps again, those inept Dems had just let taxes get a little too low…
Rove sites “tax cuts”. Yes, well, tax cuts are all well and good, but clearly, the bush tax cuts have been politically motivated irresponsiblity. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports:
April 23, 2004
“The Bush Administration has stood in favor of tax cuts through thick and thin…Now, in the face of yawning deficits and its own pledge to reduce them, the Administration has again put forward large, permanent tax cuts as part of its most recent budget.”
We’ve also been treated to “limit spending and spending restraint”?
According to Annenberg Political Fact Check:
“The President wrongly claimed he cut the growth of discretionary spending. Reality: the growth rate multiplied.”
It’s curious that Rove mentions “immigration reform”. Does a “small government” get itself so deeply involved in the details of immigration?
Does it go about literally building fences to keep immigrants out?
The grand majority of these immigrants are driven by employment opportunities. A “small government” makes decisions about who’s labor it’s citizens may purchase?
Perhaps I confuse “small” with “limited” government; a more objective criteria. Well, he did promise us “small”, not “limited”, didn’t he?
On the other hand, what might be Mr. Rove’s objective standard for “smallness”, if he’s going to tout such an ambitious and expansive goal as a “democracy agenda in the Middle East”?
Reducing trade barriers? In these parts, where we actually do advocate small government, we would eliminate trade barriers.
And then there’s the vague notion of “traditional values”. Please bear with me here, as I am hardly a traditionalist, but aren’t adherents to tradition a bit offended by the attention to “entitlement reform”, rather than it’s elimination, and replacement by private charity?
And what about the concern for “energy”? Isn’t that a matter that traditionalists would prefer be left to free enterprise? Or am I harkening too far back in time for contemporary traditionalists?
“No Child Left Behind reauthorization”?? What ever happened to the Republican promise to eliminate the Department of Education?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t traditional values advocates prefer educational decision-making on the familial and community, rather than the federal level?
Is there anything over which Republican “small government” would not hold sway?
Perhaps Mr. Rove has suffered a spell of dyslexia? Perhaps he really meant to point out to us that the Republicans are small people promoting BIG GOVERNMENT.
“Strong defense”? Fighting the “war on terror”? I won’t bother to elab on those; they’re a recurring theme here.
Suffice to say, coming off what the left (Democrat) and right (Republican) wings of the WAR PARTY have done, we need to strengthen our defense by learning, as a nation, to mind our own damned business.
We need to stop “fighting” the “war on terror” and stop MOTIVATING terrorists.
Legal reform? Oh, please. Libertarians, and all advocates of rule of law will offer Rove some suggestions to get him STARTED on legal reforms:
Repeal the following:
The Patriot Act
The Military Commissions Act
The REAL ID Act
That’s just off the top of my head, for openers.
—The Bikemessenger