For today’s CNN commentary they found a historian to talk about the size of the federal government. The headline is “GOP’s “small government” talk is hollow” and it’s written by left wing partisan historian Julian E. Zelizer. Why do I say he’s partisan? Well, I know nothing about the guy, but there’s one phrase in the “commentary” that’s revealing.
The right-wing CATO Institute published a report noting that total government spending had grown by 33 percent in President Bush’s first term, lamenting that “President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson.”
Ah, the “right-wing CATO Institute” tells me everything I need to know about the political perspective of Zelizer. While CATO is right leaning it’s mostly a libertarian think tank that was harsh on many of Bush’s policies. Zelizer does a great job explaining why the past eight years were anything but smaller government, but then tries to argue that Americans don’t want it.
Fifty years of American history have shown that even the party that traditionally advocates small government on the campaign trail opts for big government when it gets into power. The rhetoric of small government has helped Republicans attract some support in the past, but it is hard to take such rhetoric seriously given the historical record — and it is a now a question whether this rhetoric is even appealing since many Americans want government to help them cope with the current crisis.
If polls are any indication a majority of Americans are still in favor of a smaller and less intrusive government. The only reason Republicans keep beating this drum is because they have seen the poll numbers. Unfortunately as this article indicates Republicans have been unwilling to pursue less government. There are a few reasons for this, but the Republicans have never had a large enough majority in Congress to implement any real change. It’s also not really clear Bush was ever serious about limited government. Zelizer also throws in this non-sequitur into the piece about Richard Nixon.
All of these presidents, particularly Nixon and Reagan, likewise promoted a muscular vision of presidential power that strengthened the authority of government and introduced concepts, such as the unitary executive, which would become the intellectual underpinning of the Bush administration.
“When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal,” Nixon told David Frost in 1977. Like it or not, strengthening the presidency is one of the most important ways in which the role of government has grown since the nation’s founding.
Other than proving he’s fan of the movie Frost/Nixon Zelizer’s point about a more powerful executive branch is lacking. I won’t even bother going into the details about the context of Nixon’s quote which the shallow masses fail to understand (Yes, Zelizer you’re included). An argument can be made that every president promotes a “muscular vision” of presidential power. In Al Gore’s case even a “muscular vision” of vice presidential power. It seems like a historian could offer a better example than a “political perception” but that’s the state of education in America. For Zelizer a simple belief must be factual. The truth is after Nixon the executive branch isn’t as powerful. After Watergate Congress weakened the power of the executive branch.
Just one side note I find it fascinating that scholarly types like Zelizer would promote the idea that Bush and Reagan presided over an extremely power executive branch. While I understand politicians and partisans are going to make gross exaggerations it’s puzzling that someone who works as a historian would so causally distort history. While Nixon remains the clearest example of abuse of power (mainly due to the Watergate cover-up) historians like Zelizer have glossed over the gross abuse of power that took place during the Johnson administration. Among other things president Johnson used the FBI to monitor the Goldwater campaign during the 1964 election. Johnson was ruthless. Historians rank LBJ as a top ten president despite his abuses of power, war on poverty, and starting a war that ultimately killed over 50,000 Americans. I guess “dismal failure” depends on how you look at things.
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