George W Bush: Enemy of Capitalism, Friend of Statism

by | Dec 22, 2010 | POLITICS

Do not let the Bush tax cuts fool you, it was an anomaly in an administration filled with big government statist policies. Regulations, redistribution of wealth, the Obama presidency, and a whole host of collectivist policies are what Pres. Bush's real economic legacy is all about.

Pres. George W. Bush was supposed to be a champion of freedom, deregulation, and limited government. Under his administration all three were shunned. Whether it was the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, the massive bailouts, the faith-based initiatives or the other statist policies he enacted, it was all done under the pretense of a “right-wing” administration. The big government statist policies of his that helped create the economic crisis got a free pass. While all the blame for the economic crisis went to his nonexistent pro-free market ideas.

The intensity of the big government onslaught starting from FDR was mellowing under the Reagan-Clinton years. The Bush Presidency with its GOP controlled houses, re-ushered in a new era of big government. As the brilliant writer C. Bradley Thompson states in an article entitled “The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism” published in the journal The Objective Standard:

“Under George Bush and the Republicans, the welfare state that Bill Clinton began to dismantle has been given a second life. The Bush administration and their Republican allies in Congress have, for instance, offered a tax “refund” to 6.5 million low-income people who do not pay taxes, passed a $180 billion farm subsidy bill (welfare for farmers), supported tariffs on steel imports (welfare for the American steel industry), and extended the American welfare state to Africa by offering the people of that continent $15 billion in AIDS relief.”

Again from the same article:

“Even more ominous, the Bush administration enthusiastically signed into law a multi-billion dollar prescription drug bill, which represents the largest expansion of the federal government in over thirty years. Conservative estimates put the cost of this Medicare drug benefit at more than $724 billion over the next decade, and as much as $2 trillion ten years beyond that. Of course, as with all entitlement programs, ballooning costs are expected in subsequent decades.”

Mr. Bradley Thompson’s article was published in 2006. This was before Pres. Bush’s $700 Billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP.) In nearly every way, Pres. Bush governed as a big government statist.

American ideals like individualism, independence, and explicit and proud self-reliance, these are some of the ideals America needs to grab back to see a glorious economic recovery. These are the ideals that Pres. Bush’s policies discouraged. Pres. Bush may have given lip-service for the “ownership society” but make no mistake, it was his “compassionate conservatism” that ran the government. All the limited government principles he paid lip-service to went out the window for the this philosophy.

Again from Mr. Bradley Thompson’s article:

“At the heart of compassionate conservatism is the altruist-collectivist code, which holds that man must live in selfless service to the needs of others—which means that rational, productive men must sacrifice (or be sacrificed) for the sake of irrational, unproductive men.”

The entire Bush presidency did more damage to free market economics than any democrat-leftist could hope for. Pres. Bush represented the Right, at least in the eyes of many people, so the blame for the economic crisis was directed towards free market policies, not the intrusive government policies which he had enacted. This situation resulted in the catastrophic far-left Obama administration. A catastrophe that could have been prevented had a true champion of free enterprise was in the white house.

Do not let the Bush tax cuts fool you, it was an anomaly in an administration filled with big government statist policies. Regulations, redistribution of wealth, the Obama presidency, and a whole host of collectivist policies are what Pres. Bush’s real economic legacy is all about.

Joshua John M. Lipana is a free market and Objectivist writer.

The views expressed above represent those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors and publishers of Capitalism Magazine. Capitalism Magazine sometimes publishes articles we disagree with because we think the article provides information, or a contrasting point of view, that may be of value to our readers.

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