Sunday, October 10, 2004
Not An Inspiring Election
You might conclude from reading my blog that I'm excited about President Bush being re-elected on November 2nd. Not true. There is no out there who a libertarian can get excited about. We might have actively campaigned for a strong rational anti-war candidate. In this way a consistent Howard Dean would have been much more preferable over John Kerry as the Democratic nominee.
On the Republican side we were promised a great debate over policies fostering an ownership society. To me what Karl Rove and the other strategists are doing is throwing out these ideas just enough to keep the free marketers interested in this race.
I'm, of course, not the only one who has noticed this. Its been pointed out by a Pulitzer prize winner. Here is Anne Applebaum on the subject:
"Just look at the numbers. According to the president's fiscal 2005 budget, discretionary federal spending -- meaning money nobody is being legally forced to spend -- has risen 29 percent over the past four years and is growing even faster than spending on Medicare and Social Security. According to a Cato Institute study, the increases for 2002, 2003 and 2004 constitute three of the five biggest annual increases in the past 40 years. Contrary to popular belief, not all the money has been spent on the military: Spending on everything besides defense will increase by more than a third during President Bush's first term. Nor is it all going to homeland security. The Education Department, once slated for abolition, has experienced a huge spending boost. So has the Energy Department, whose creation was once greeted with skepticism. In fact, many of the programs that Republicans promised to eliminate in the mid-1990s -- the dubious public-private partnerships, the extraneous commissions, the grants for pet causes -- now have larger budgets than ever."
PermaLink | 11:47 AM |
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On the Republican side we were promised a great debate over policies fostering an ownership society. To me what Karl Rove and the other strategists are doing is throwing out these ideas just enough to keep the free marketers interested in this race.
I'm, of course, not the only one who has noticed this. Its been pointed out by a Pulitzer prize winner. Here is Anne Applebaum on the subject:
"Just look at the numbers. According to the president's fiscal 2005 budget, discretionary federal spending -- meaning money nobody is being legally forced to spend -- has risen 29 percent over the past four years and is growing even faster than spending on Medicare and Social Security. According to a Cato Institute study, the increases for 2002, 2003 and 2004 constitute three of the five biggest annual increases in the past 40 years. Contrary to popular belief, not all the money has been spent on the military: Spending on everything besides defense will increase by more than a third during President Bush's first term. Nor is it all going to homeland security. The Education Department, once slated for abolition, has experienced a huge spending boost. So has the Energy Department, whose creation was once greeted with skepticism. In fact, many of the programs that Republicans promised to eliminate in the mid-1990s -- the dubious public-private partnerships, the extraneous commissions, the grants for pet causes -- now have larger budgets than ever."
PermaLink | 11:47 AM |
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