Posted on 04/12/2010 10:30:40 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
A former White House speechwriter, Mark Thiessen, has jumped to the defense of his former boss, writing for the Washington Post that George W. Bush “established a conservative record without parallel.” Even by the loose standards of Washington, that is a jaw-dropping assertion. I’ve been explaining for years that Bush was a big-government advocate, even writing a column back in 2007 for the Washington Examiner pointing out that Clinton had a much better economic record from a free-market perspective. I also groused to the Wall Street Journal the following year about Bush’s dismal performance.
“Bush doesn’t have a conservative legacy” on the economy, said Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Tax-rate reductions are the only positive achievement, and those are temporary … Everything else that has happened has been permanent, and a step toward more statism.” He cited big increases in the federal budget, along with continuing subsidies in agriculture and transportation, new Medicare drug benefits, and increased federal intervention in education and housing.
Let’s review the economic claims in Mr. Thiessen’s column. He writes:
The thrust of their argument is that Bush expanded the size of government dramatically — and they are absolutely right. Federal spending grew significantly on Bush’s watch, and this is without question a black mark on his record. (Federal spending also grew dramatically under Ronald Reagan, though he was dealt a Democratic Congress, whereas Bush had six years of Republican leadership on Capitol Hill.)
Since federal spending almost doubled in Bush’s eight years, it’s tempting to summarily dismiss this assertion, but let’s cite a few additional facts just in case someone is under the illusion that Bush was on the side of taxpayers. And let’s specifically compare Bush to Reagan since Mr. Thiessen seems to think they belong in the same ball park. This article by Veronique de Rugy is probably a good place to begin since it compares all Presidents and shows that Bush was a big spender compared to Reagan…and to Clinton. Chris Edwards has similar dat, capturing all eight years of Bush’s tenure. But the most damning evidence comes from the OMB’s Historical Tables, which show that Reagan reduced both entitlements and domestic discretionary spending as a share of GDP during his two terms. Bush (and I hope nobody is surprised) increased the burden of spending in both of these categories. That’s the spending side of the ledger. Let’s now turn to tax policy, where Thiessen writes:
Bush enacted the largest tax cuts in history — and unlike my personal hero, Ronald Reagan, he never signed a major tax increase into law.
Using the most relevant measures, such as changes in marginal tax rates or comparing the impact of each President’s tax changes on revenues as a share of GDP, Bush’s tax cuts are far less significant than the Reagan tax cuts. But there presumably is some measure, perhaps nominal revenues over some period of years, showing the Bush tax cuts are larger, so we’ll let that claim slide. The more relevant issue to address is the legacy of each President. Reagan did sign several tax increases after his 1981 Economic Recovery Tax Act, but the cumulative effect of those unfortunate compromises was relatively modest compared to the positive changes in his first year. When he left office, he bequeathed to the nation a tax code with meaningful and permanent tax rate reductions. The Bush tax cuts, by contrast, expire at the end of this year, and virtually all of the pro-growth provisions will disappear. This doesn’t mean Bush’s record on taxes was bad, but it certainly does not compare to the Gipper’s. But what about other issue, such as trade? Thiessen writes:
Bush enacted free-trade agreements with 17 nations, more than any president in history.
Those are some positive steps, to be sure, but they are offset by the protectionist moves on steel and lumber. I’m not a trade expert, so I don’t know if Bush was a net negative or a net positive, but at best it’s a muddled picture and Thiessen certainly did not present the full story. And speaking of sins of omission, his section on health care notes:
Bush created Health Savings Accounts – the most important free-market health-care reform in a generation. And he courageously stood up to Congressional Democrats when they sought to use the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to nationalize health care — and defeated their efforts.
Conveniently missing from this analysis, though, is any mention of the utterly irresponsible prescription drug entitlement. There is no doubt that Bush’s net impact on health care was to saddle America with more statism. Indeed, I’d be curious to see some long-run numbers on the impact of Bush’s prescription drug entitlement and the terrible plan Obama just imposed on America. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the negative fiscal impact of both plans was comparable. Shifting gears, let’s now turn to education policy, where Thiessen writes:
Bush won a Supreme Court ruling declaring school vouchers constitutional and enacted the nation’s first school-choice program in the District of Columbia.
Bush deserves some credit on school choice, but his overall education record is characterized by more spending and centralization. Thanks in part to his no-bureaucrat-left-behind plan, the budget for the Department of Education grew significantly and federal spending on elementary, secondary, and vocational education more than doubled. Equally worrisome, federal bureaucrats gained more control over education policy. Finally, Thiessen brags about Bush’s record on Social Security reform:
Bush fought valiantly for a conservative priority no American president had ever dared to touch: Social Security reform, with private accounts that would have given millions of our citizens a stake in the free market system. His effort failed, but he deserves credit from conservatives for staking his second term in office on this effort.
This is an area where the former President does deserve some credit. So even though the White House’s failure to ever put forth a specific proposal was rather frustrating, at least Bush did talk about real reform and the country would be better off today if something had been enacted.
This addresses all the economic claims in Thiessen’s article, but we can’t give Bush a complete grade until we examine some of the other issues that were missing from the column. On regulatory issues, the biggest change implemented during the Bush year was probably Sarbanes-Oxley — a clear example of regulatory overkill. Another regulatory change, which turned out to be a ticking time bomb, was the expansion of the “affordable-lending” requirements for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
And speaking of Fannie and Freddie, no analysis of Bush’s record would be complete without a discussion of bailouts. Without getting too deep in the issue, the most galling part of what Bush did was not necessarily recapitalizing the banking system (a good chunk of which was required by government deposit insurance anyhow), but rather the way it happened. During the savings & loan bailout 20 years ago, at least incompetent executives and negligent shareholders were wiped out. Government money was used, but only to pay off depositors and/or to pay healthy firms to absorb bankrupt institutions. Bush and Paulson, by contrast, exacerbated all the moral hazard issues by rescuing the executives and shareholders who helped create the mess. Last but not least, let’s not forget that Bush got the ball rolling on auto-industry bailouts.
If all of this means Bush is a “conservative record without parallel,” then Barack Obama must be the second coming of Ronald Reagan.
Yo, Dooles- “Of course, we need to support Obama taking every DIME of our property :) You object??? You would just lose it anyway on lotto or IPAD. I want more raises for union leaders like with the stimulus with YOUR money. ”
Seriously, I was just saying that consumption taxes make more sense than investment and income taxes, not that they would be implemented correctly, and I wouldn't want them hidden like VAT and C+T, I would want the tax prices on the price tag.
Back to reality, the only tax increases I support is taxing that 47% that pay NO income taxes now. And forget cutting entitlements, until federal pensions and retiree medical benefits are cut, then we can talk.
Clinton was Evil. He just didn’t have a Democrat Congress and a Democrat Senate to aid him. Do you think HillaryCare would have failed if they had had both houses of Congress.
No, Clinton was just as evil as the radical communist Muslim we have now. Clinton was also a radical communist. Both evil.
Both supported by Soros. Both run by Rahm Emanuel and others.
Peas in a pod and both advancing the agenda of their communist handlers as far and as fast as they possibly can. The only difference is that Clinton faced a Republican House and Senate.
“Everytime EVERYTIME you have to listen to that Marxist Muslim behind the Presidential Podium - don’t EVER forget who helped put him there - Bush II and John McCain.
America has had a succession of bad Presidents - Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, followed by an EVIL President - Barack Hussein Obama.”
AMEN!!!! People have to realize how this country has lost its direction. It did not happen overnight and the above sentences underscores why. The presidents of the past 25 years have helped create the largest entitlement population this country has ever seen. Just like the unions this group will keep voting themselves the ‘goody continueum’.
What really sticks in my craw was when an interviewer said to Bush II, “most Americans are against amnesty and illegal immigration”, his smug answer was basically I don’t care and “their wrong”. GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!
“History will be kind to Pres. GW Bush.”
I guess you can’t believe everything you read!
“Do I have to make this simple ? Republicans are always better than democrats because they are not democrats. If republicans spend a dollar, democrats will spend two. That is 100% improvement (no matter what side you are on.)”
How does it feel to keep voting for the lesser of two evils until you cultivate enough idiots to vote for evil #1, Obama?
“I STILL miss him though.”
He is part of the reason why we are in this mess. Bush was pro big government spending, pro amnesty, pro giving home loans to those that could not afford them, etc....
Actually doc reminded me I needed to update this to post- president-you-know-who. Republicans spend a dollar $1.00 and get reelected. So then they spend $1.50 after reelection, learning bigger=better. We get pretty mad at them but we are warned democrats are so evil it doesnt matter what republicans do wrong (that even a child rapist would be better than a rat.) So we elect them a third time and they spend $2.00. Now the voters are so p...ed off that only a few base followers buy the ‘end of the world’ threat line, most stay home or voter third party, some jump over to 'Hope and Change'. So then democrats finally get elected with a massive majority impossible to stop. And they spend $4.00 doubling spending of the prior republicans. So what did we get?
1.00+1.50+2.00+4.00=$8.50. And those same republicans ask: “Miss us yet?”
...”under Bush”...
...I slept better after trimin a little bush...
...Sweeping the house was fun, some folks remember it called, Dust My Broom”, Robert Johnson style...
Not an Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Monroe, Madison or even Jackson among them.
Well, yes and no.
Yes their administration was better, but their political ineptitude set the stage for the gang of Marxists in there now.
Didn’t know that worm Soros supported that idiot Clinton.
The world would be much better without that bastard Soros.
To all of the Harpies and keyword spammers (you know who you are), I couldn’t fit this into the keywords:
“I’ve Abandoned Free Market Principles To Save The Free Market System”.
Jackson: "But I reckon that the United States is still the only place in the world where a man can cuss the President out loud and all the President can do is cuss back or else go fishin'. That's what I call democracy."
Compare that to what happens now. Palin says Obama's unilateral disarmament is foolish and dangerous, Obama says she is ignorant, Palin replies that Obama is ignorant, and the MSM says Palin didn't respect the office of the POTUS.
Generally, I agree except when it came to amnesty for illegal aliens. The point is that there are different grades of RINO's just as there are different grades of conservatives.
Jim DeMint, for instance, is about as solid as a conservative as you can get. But even he has a blind spot when it comes to his colleage Lindsey Graham.
A problem with electing RINOs is that they can almost never be replaced without letting a liberal Democrat have a seat for a term.
Exactly. I can think of few instances where that has not been true. Which is why I will vote for a RINO only when there is no viable alternative.
Bush was good...more conservative than Reagan when it comes to dealing with terrorist enemies.
The far left....spending all of their time attacking Bush and Palin. Rabadash the paulite troll...spending all of his time attacking Bush and Palin.
AS an independent who has kept up with all of the Bush years, it is offensive to me that Bush is NOT called a conservative. The word ‘compassionate” was use in the campaigns, so that it took off the image of his Texas hardline attitude on certain issues....palatable to independents and libertarians needed to win an election.
As I watched the news and participated in both 2000, and 2004 election process, it became clear that some things Bush had to do would be misunderstood by many, due to the powers and policies already in place for ANY president.
I read Karl Rove’s book, and not because I was particularly impressed by him, but to check my facts against his... to see how accurate and truthful he was,...and I was impressed.
All of the facts I had ingested from news around the world, and taken from Fox and other reliable sources matched with his accounts from behind the scenes.
The propaganda of the lamestream media, and Bush bashing that Glenn Beck has done ( and I do like him otherwise) is ludicrous. Maybe Bush was not as far right as you might like but he definately wasn’t a liberal like McCain. In fact, I have spent very little time on FR due to fact that so many have commented like liberals from Huffington Post...to the point, that I believe this website is infested with democrats using this space to influence Freepers to abandan some of the best candidates in 2012.
You lie.
Ninety plus percent of my threads are anti-McCain threads.
And we all know that McCain is a radical progressive who said that we would have "nothing to fear" from Obama.
Rabadash: "Palin is McCain in a skirt...FUSP"
I see you've summoned your idiot attack dogs...perhaps they can share their great wisdom with the forum by making such profound statements like 'Sarah Palin is now the enemy'. Hey, instead of summoning these two bozos, why don't you try explaining why Ron Paul's kooky isolationism is good for America?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.