Posted on 10/26/2001 12:18:43 PM PDT by Constitution Day
Conservatives Grow Worried That Attacks Are Leading To Growth Of Government
BUSINESS WEEK
Fri Oct 26 2001 10:24:56 ET
"Traumatized Americans now support increased defense spending, tough new anti-terrorism measures, and more domestic drilling to lessen reliance on imported oil. President Bush towers near a 90% job approval rating, and congressional Republicans have never been more popular. So why so many long faces on the Right?" asks fresh editions of BUSINESS WEEK.
MORE
Big Government "is back, as Congress and the Bushies work together to prop up battered industries, extend benefits for dislocated workers, and help the public-health system cope with bio-terror."
The mag continues: While President Bush "sees this bipartisanship as the ultimate expression of the new tone he wanted to bring to Washington," the "true believers on the Right worry that Bush is bending too many conservative principles for the sake of consensus."
Kenneth L. Connor of the Family Research Council said, "It's important that government protect its citizens. But that shouldn't be a pretext for growing government." Business Week adds the "restive Right fears that Bush will agree to hike funding for safety-net programs and build new bureaucracies such as the Office of Homeland Security."
Conservatives also "fret that Bush will sell them out on the House's $100 billion economic stimulus package by tilting toward the Dems and ignoring demands for capital-gains tax cuts and business breaks."
Free Congress Foundation president Paul Weyrich said, "We had just gotten things under control. Now we're about to go blow it all." DeLay Discusses Government Spending, Bipartisanship.
Elsewhere in BUSINESS WEEK:
House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, when asked about "post-September 11 spending," notes: "People have concerns about what the hangover is going to look like. Come May or June, when people wake up to huge [new] spending and we're getting close to going back into deficit spending, people are going to ask questions about what we did.
"The President says in time of war we may have to go to deficit spending, but some of us are saying: 'No.'" Asked about "growing support for government," DeLay said, "You can't take five weeks and decide that everything has changed. Certainly, we are different than we were before September 11.
"But I don't think basic philosophical values have changed." Asked about bipartisanship, DeLay said, "The Democrats' definition of bipartisanship is buy into my [plan] and I'll come on board. I'm trying to support the President's position, and the press says I'm the guy blowing up bipartisanship. My definition of bipartisanship is: The President has a position. What will it take for you Democrats to support [that] position?"
Developing...
They just want to add to their alphabet soup of agencies. Government perpetuates itself!
It will take some time. Remember, we still have eight years of Clintonian neglect of defense to rectify.
On the contrary: it is precisely government growth that is the very source of our problems. If our government had stuck to its Constitutional boundaries, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
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