I am increasingly disturbed by the apparent strategies that are being employed by the Bush administration in an attempt to get a more solid majority in Congress. It seems to me that 'Compassionate Conservatism' is nothing more than a rehash of liberalism and the ultimate promotion of the programs conservatives have been against for generations. A good example of this would be the Farm Bill that was passed soon after Bush took office. It was a huge subsidy of large businesses of which few at all resemble the quaint little farm that great grandpa owned out in the country. Most are multinational and multimillion to billion dollar entities which need little in the way of subsidies especially when you consider that the government controls the price of the food they sell anyway so that the farmers won't have to sell at actual market costs. Heaven forbid the farmers be competitive businessmen. And this is happening in many sectors such as education, prescription drug benefits, the new tax bill being considered in the House now, the multi-million dollar give away to the Victims of September 11th, the airline bailout shortly thereafter, etc. (Please note that although the victims of the September 11th attacks are a group of people most deserving of our support as a nation, the Constitution does not allow the government to spend money for the purpose of benevolence. That is our individual responsibility as citizens, and I support giving to them wholeheartedly.)
The Bush administration is trying to gain seats in the Congress by compromising on issues that are core conservative beliefs. The biggest one that comes to mind right now is the push towards universal health care and prescription drug benefits for seniors. Although I don't believe this should be necessary at all. People should be responsible for themselves and their families without expecting everyone else to pay their way through life. Nevertheless if it is to be at all, Bush had it initially right when he proposed that the seniors be allowed to join private companies and get their coverage that way. This would have lessened the size and intrusiveness of government as well as creating jobs in the health industry because of the new clients they would be receiving. The Democrats however, in typical socialist style, are demanding that it stay within the Medicare system and that the government provide these benefits through an inefficient and bloated bureaucracy. The very idea makes conservatives in this Republic of ours cringe. More government spending when the spending has already grown to 24% of the GNP. Instead of creating jobs that will infuse revenue into the treasury we will hire more people to bloat out the government offices even more and take money out of the treasury. This is going to cost Billions.
The strategy seems to be to gain a larger slice of the electoral-pie through compromising on social issues and taking the issues out of the democrat's hands. Democrats whine, Bush gives them what they want and supposedly this will give the Republicans a broader majority in the Congress. My question is this: What good could this possibly do? Isn't this a detrimental exercise from the start? Here is the scenario I see: We as the GOP 'convert' democrats to our cause by adopting many of their core issues and then when we have a big enough majority in the Congress to get the Judicial nominees through without a hitch, and enact the policies that will shrink the government and basically head back towards the conservative end of government philosophy. That is what I see as the Bush strategy as it is being put into practice. Okay, say we've gotten that far, what will these new republican voters think? Will they just automatically be champions of conservatism and cheer the changes on? No, they came to the Party through the ruse of compromise on issues that they hold dear. So the next obvious question is whether or not they will stick with the Republican Party and George Bush when they realize that what Bush and the Congress are doing is exactly the opposite of why they voted for them in the first place? I don't think any reasonable person would conclude that.
Bush is selling them the big government that Clinton campaigned against but instituted anyway. Bush, in his efforts to be compassionate has compromised to the point that many of the things that are passing Congress look as if they were sponsored, developed and passed by democrats - and in many instances they are. He is doing the old Clinton triangulation dance and it is disturbing to me because it cannot possibly work.
Say things do go according to plan and the GOP wins a huge majority in both houses of Congress with Bush in the White House to boot. What then? We just implemented some of the largest social spending increases in the history of the nation. And all of a sudden the country is going to support cutting the size of government? How fast can we possibly do this when we have gotten to the size the government currently is by incremental steps over a period of 90 years? From the point when the Federal Income Tax was enacted - some say by illegal means - to now the size, scope and power of government over our lives has steadily increased from 3% of the GNP to the current level of 24%. Yet we are supposed to significantly change all that in one 4-year period with the help of ‘converted’ democrats who intellectually agree with and support the very institutions we as conservatives would love to see the demise of. It just doesn't make sense.