How the Fiscal Socialist Policies of President Bush Have Screwed My Generation Posted by Vector Prime: Fiscal socialism. The definition for this term relies upon the individual words. The word “fiscal” denotes the support for or the institution of supply-side economic policies, or economic policies in which taxes are cut to stimulate economic growth and increase government revenues, in order to achieve economic stimulation and an increase in tax revenues. The word “socialism” in this case relates not to the economic system of socialism itself, but rather to massive government spending and the huge expansion of government. A fiscal socialist is one who believes in or acts upon this ideology. While claiming to be a conservative, President George W. Bush is, in fact, no conservative. He is, rather, a fiscal socialist. The Bush Administration has, since the year 2001, grown the federal debt by an astounding 53%, a shocking three trillion dollar increase from a comparatively low $5.6 trillion debt to a disgustingly high $8.6 trillion. According to libertarian economist Stephen Slivinski, director of budget studies at the Cato Institute, “In Bush’s presidency so far the federal budget has grown by 27 percent after adjusting for inflation. That’s more than twice as fast as during the eight years of President Clinton.” Entitlement spending was 4.1 percent under President Carter and 3.3 under President Clinton. Now, under President Bush, entitlement spending is growing at 5.1%–under a supposedly “conservative” president. According to an August 2006 Denver Post article, “even after entitlement, defense, and homeland security spending are removed from the equation, the growth of federal spending in the Bush years (4.5 percent) exceeds that of the Johnson (4.1 percent), Carter (1.6 percent), or Clinton (2.1 percent) presidencies.” Comparing Clinton, the last president, to Bush, federal spending has increased 2.4% more than under Clinton. Bear in mind that those folks were Democratic presidents, not Republican presidents claiming to be conservative by any stretch. Finally, Bush and the Republican Congress expanded government spending to an astounding 20.8 percent of 2006 GDP. Reagan would be appalled. Upon inheriting a recession from President Clinton, President Bush saw fit – rightfully so, in my opinion – to cut taxes. This was a wise decision because, as proven under the Reagan administration, tax cuts do, indeed, stimulate economic growth and increase government revenues. However, also like under Reagan, government spending continued to increase. Reagan has the excuse of massive defense spending, which was necessary in order to end the Cold War (which it of course did), and a Democratic Congress for a much of his two terms. President Bush does not, for this president had a Republican Congress, a Congress of the party that is supposed to be for less spending and smaller government, up until this current Congress. And under this president—a man who ran under a platform of “compassionate conservatism” and the principles of limited government—the scope of government has expanded to epic proportions, and government spending, even barring Iraq, 9/11, and Katrina, is the highest it’s been since LBJ. That’s atrocious, especially considering the fact that President Bush touts himself as a conservative. Yet if he’s any type of conservative, he’s certainly a faux-conservative, not a real one. First of all, with his 2003 Medicare legislation, President Bush and the Republicans in Congress instituted additions which blew that program up to a size of unprecedented proportions, increasing Medicare costs by at least $534 billion in 10 years. And his adjustments were adjustments for the drug companies, not the people. Poll after poll showed America’s seniors didn’t want the additions to the program this legislation provided. In essence, the president and Congress chose to expand a government program without the support of those that would be affected by the law, which makes it all the worse. The president also continued with his government expansionist policies with regards to education. His No Child Left Behind Act, while well-intentioned and including many good policies (at least, in theory), expanded the range of the federal government in matters of education to abhorrent levels. And to make matters worse, like what had happened under the Clinton administration with his NSEA law, the federal government failed to fund the mandates of its own program. This consequently resulted in increased strain for the states, which had to and continue to have to reach into their own pockets to fund the mandates required of them by the act. The government shouldn’t have instituted this expansionist program in the first place, let alone not fund it while it is in place. This is the inherent flaw with federal government programs with regards to education. It continues to expand its influence in matters of education and then never funds its mandates appropriately. Therefore, the federal government should keep its educational powers at bay, if not lessen them. But, in the case of NCLB, what do you expect when you have George Bush, fiscal socialist, and Teddy Kennedy, liberal expansionist extraordinaire, work together to put forth education legislation? At any rate, the point is that the President, a man who pretends to be a conservative, has expanded government like a liberal and driven us into the biggest debt in US history. He’s cut taxes, yes, but with tax cuts must come moderate spending, as the revenue increases tax cuts provide do not necessarily outpace government expenditures. Tax increases, on the other hand, increase revenues at faster paces than tax cuts, and therefore tax and spend liberalism, in governmental terms, not economic, is more plausible. Fiscal socialism, however, cannot work because, though government revenues are increased, the increases are not enough to come even close to compensating for the expenditures. Neither policy, however, should be instituted, for the one hurts economic interests and the other dampens budgetary interests. The president and Republicans in Congress need to wake up and smell the coffee. If you’re going to cut taxes, you have to keep spending down. If you’re going to claim to be conservatives, you have to actually practice what you preach and keep government spending and expansion at bay. If you’re going to institute a federal program that will directly affect the states, fund it, don’t hurt them. The ball will, sadly, be in my generation’s court. Because the Bush Administration has squandered a surplus, spent like a drunken sailor (with all due respect to sailors), and expanded government, we will be forced to grapple with the debt that has resulted from his fiscal socialist policies. My generation now has to foot the bill for this blatant incompetence which has added so much to the debt. Being beholden to creditors is never a good thing when you’re an individual with a family to provide for. Now imagine being a nation which has 300 million people to provide for. Being beholden to countries like China, one of our biggest creditors, for instance, as we are puts this into full perspective. Only time will tell when the American president—whomever he is—will say, “Oh, you mean that Taiwan? I guess you’re right. We’ll stay out of the way.” The government needs to get spending under control now, in one way or another. The tax cuts aren’t the problem—they’ve increased revenues. It’s the spending that’s the problem. Entitlement programs need to be reworked, many of them switched over to means-tested structures, nondiscretionary non-defense spending under control to the best of our ability. Pork barrel spending must be eliminated, perhaps through the granting of the line-item veto power to the President. Discretionary spending must be either frozen for a certain amount of time or operate under a limited budget. Tax loopholes must be closed in on. Then, only then, could we see a little bit of hope for the debt—and for my generation—without damaging the economy with tax increases. We elected a man to the office of the president with the idea that he would be a “compassionate conservative.” What is compassionate about leaving my generation with the fiscal crisis we’re now in? What is conservative about spending without end and increasing the scope of government? The answer is nothing. So what is he? All evidence points to a political philosophy of fiscal socialism, and the same goes for the vast majority of modern Republicans serving in Congress, who controlled the legislature for the first six years of the Bush presidency. I’ll further examine the particulars of the serious budget crisis in a later post, but the above gets the gist of the tragic budgetary crisis this country, and particularly my generation, is facing as a result of the fiscal socialist policies of this president and the previous Republican Congress. Gone are the days of Ronald Reagan, fiscal conservatism, and the Republican Revolution, and we have dire need for someone to bring them back.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 03:59:40 +0000
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