America?s political ombudsman and recent speaker for the John Locke Foundation, Michael Barone, has a column in the December 15th edition of U.S. News and World Report that creates fear in my limited-government bones. He notes ?Bush did not really campaign as a small-government conservative.? Of course, we all should have known this but the reminder is jolting.
Wait, there is more. Pivoting off of the recent Medicare logrolling ? the President signs the new legislation today ? Barone hits us with a provocative thesis: ?Bush has redefined conservatism. It is now not the process of cutting government and devolving powers; it is the process of installing choice and accountability into government even at the cost of allowing it to grow.? (Emphasis mine.)
Barone neatly sums up two distinct threads of the conservative mind on government: efficiency and scope. The former deals with how to run the public square and the latter deals with the reach (size) of the public square. His argument is that the current administration, and therefore tenor of Congress, has jettisoned half of their base. This is half of their intellectual, ideological, and, importantly, political base. Barone makes a persuasive case but in order for him to be right, about a redefinition, evidence would have to bear him out over time. That gives room for the limited-government wing of the President?s party and political base to prove that there are huge payoffs to a system of limited government.
