The Same Swill in a Different Bottle: The Era of Big Government is Not Over.

The Republican Revolution 10 Years Later: Smaller Government or Business as Usual?
By Chris Edwards and John Samples
Washington: Cato Institute Press * March 2005
ISBN: 1930865694 * 272 pages * $19.95

Reviewed by Ali Hassan Massoud

Three times in recent years have I felt the energy crackling in the air as people began talking, mumbling, and getting riled up and otherwise making known their desire for change. Like when the sky begins to darken suddenly, winds pick up speed, and you can just feel from your head down to your toes that something very big is getting set to happen.

The first time was in 1992 when you could just feel the air rushing out of the end of the Reagan-Bush era and the emergence of Ross Perot and Bill Clinton. George H.W. Bush was a dead man walking, as was the memetic construct of Reaganism and Reaganomics that had carried Bush into office originally. You could just feel it.

Two years later in 1994 I felt it again. The Democrats under Clinton had it all. They had large majorities in Congress and the presidency. The Democrats, under, Clinton’s leadership pushed through big tax increases which cut the deficit, passed the Brady Bill, the North American Free Trade Act, and the Assault Weapons Ban, all in just two years. Clinton and company almost got a big new health care “reform” bill enacted as well. Many achievements in just two short years. However, all this “progress” left much of the public furious.

Then there was of course that feeling again on the afternoon of September 11, 2001.

The watershed election of 1994 gave control of the Congress to the Republicans for the first time in four decades. In their Contract with America, the Republicans promised “to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives” and to end “government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money.”

This collection of essays includes contributions from 16 policy experts, principally Cato Institute scholars, who assess the Republican record in each major policy area, including welfare, education, heath care, regulation, taxation, and trade.

It also features essays by the key architects of the 1994 election victory, Newt Gingrich and Richard Armey, who went on to lead the Republican House of Representatives. For my taste, Armey and Gingrich’s contributions on how they gained power were by far the most interesting parts of the book. Their message reminded me of a Country-Western song lyric about how “you’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything”. Which is why the Republicans were lost in the darkness of minority status for forty years running eh?

Other declarations of the incoming Republicans have been long forgotten. In 1995, Bill Frist of Tennessee went to Senate floor to denounce Bill Clinton's budget policies, arguing for "adjustment, reform, and downsizing the federal government." He charged that "without a balanced budget agreement there will be profoundly negative consequences." Today, Majority Leader Frist and his party preside over a deficit that is twice as big as in 1995.

The policy scholars, wonks, wonkettes, bloggers, pundits, and the occaisonal party hack have all chimed in on where and when the GOP is ahead and behind on implementing their agenda into American culture (not much) and politics (a little more).

In the past ten years though the ’94 firebrands have most thoroughly morphed into the wasteful, arrogant, spendthrift, porker barrelers that they railed against to win power. Libertarians and others concerned with liberty, and so largely immune from the muck and slime hurled by pundits and party hacks, seem to largely agree with this assessment. The Cato scholars mostly gloss over this however.

What criticism they do express is principally devoted to economics. To wit:

“While many Americans seem to believe corporations are big winners under Republican governments”, said one critic, “the GOP has not cut corporate taxes appreciably during the current administration. That is unfortunate, because the U.S. corporate income tax desperately needs to be cut and simplified to adjust to the realities of the increasingly competitive global economy.”

Tax policy criticism continues along this vein. Republican members of Congress seem addicted to narrow tax-credits, special deductions, and complex income limitations. For example, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 contained 11 narrow education tax breaks for such items as student loan interest, a tuition tax credit, and an education IRA. Each item has complex requirements related to income, eligibility, and administration.

Yet, the real failure of Republican economics is what they do mention much in this book. It should come as no real mystery even to non-economists (that is to say most of us), that huge budget deficits are as dangerous to the American people as were the Soviet nuclear arsenal of the Cold War years albeit in a different way. Between a Hobbesian choice of high deficits and less tax, or the reverse, by far the best choice is the latter. Currency debasement and inflation are much more harmful. The GOP has no idea how to reverse this without alienating their coalition either. I see this failure as the biggest problem with GOP governance and really should have been addressed more in this book.

Think tanks like Cato and others have noted that Republicans in particular love tax cuts, but hate cutting the middle class entitlements as much as is needed to prevent massive deficit spending. The Republicans can see no clear way out of that downward spiral either. The book mentions these problems not at all.

The third big mood swing in public perception was following the September 11, 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda. It was responding and reacting to this attack that in the end totally derailed permanently any further hope for limited government and less government spending.

The various Patriot Acts are without a doubt the most Gestapo-like transgressions on American freedoms since the Alien & Sedition Acts of the John Adam’s presidency and seem to have done very little to prevent terrorism or attacks, but do hugely curtail basic concepts of privacy and personal liberty for very little gain in security. The book should address this issue more given that their mandate from the Contract with America specifically promises less intrusive government.

Given the things that the federal government is charged with doing, the fact that duties such as border security and customs enforcement remain a pathetic joke four years after the WTC attacks is simply incompetence on the part of the US government. Which by the way has been an entirely GOP controlled enterprise since January 20, 2001 (excepting an 18 month hiatus when the Senate was controlled by the Democrats by a single vote).

The GOP's sell-out on reform is particularly surprising given that the public initially supported much of the Republican agenda. Voters strongly supported term limits, and they did not revolt when the House pushed for cuts to Medicare, education, housing, Amtrak, and other sensitive programs. Indeed, voters returned Republicans to the majority in subsequent elections, and polls showed that public approval of Congress soared in the years after the GOP taking control.

Republicans also had a sympathetic Supreme Court to buttress their reform efforts. On federalism, the 1995 Lopez decision struck down a federal law on guns near schools, affirming that there are constitutional limits to federal intrusions into state and local affairs. The GOP could have used the landmark ruling to eliminate other unconstitutional programs, but they missed the opportunity.

This makes the difference between what they are and what they claim to be quite a spread. The GOP intelligentsia and leadership badly needs to address these failures much better than it has if they wish to ever again enter into a practical alliance with Libertarians and other anti-statists.

"Chemical Ali" Massoud is a father, political theorist, apostate Muslim, small business owner, college graduate, crack rifle marksman, a compulsiveblogger, cat lover, shrewd investor, US Army veteran, and currently single. He lives in Michigan. To see what he means by "Anarchy," and other ideas he has click here