President Bush is NOT a conservative
May 22nd, 2008I’ve already written an article on this before, but wanted an update on it. There still seems to be a lot of good folks with good intentions who falsely still believe that George W Bush is a conservative. I will prove them wrong.
I am not going to talk about social or religious conservatism, but rather fiscal and Constitutional conservatism. Fiscal conservatism is simply an economic philosophy favoring prudence when it comes to economic spending and debt.
The last fiscal conservative President we had was Bill Clinton, who balanced the budget and gave us a surplus by cutting spending. When George W Bush came to office, he almost immediately gave us a deficit by increasing spending to ungodly levels. Bush sympathizers like to put the blame on Congress and especially on Congressional Democrats, but the President has the power to Veto any bill Congress tries to get through.
I actually will give him credit for the tax cuts. I like tax cuts. But you have to cut spending when you cut taxes.
The problem with President Bush is he almost NEVER used the Veto. According to the Wall Street Journal (May 15, 2008), Reagan used 78 Vetoes. George HW Bush used it 44 times. Bill Clinton used it 37 times. George W Bush only 9 times. 9 times, folks. Want to know why the deficit is so bad? There ya go.
Putting it in human terms, it’s like if your parents died and left you a surplus of money. You go out and spend it all, then pick up some credit cards and max them all out, leaving you in fat debt. Then you get married and your spouse inherits that debt. That’s what our next President will get.
–
As for Constitutional matters, a true Conservative believes in the Constitution. There have been numerous things Bush has done that are unconstitutional, from the Patriot Act to continuing the War on Drugs (which in Bush’s defense the next President will most likely to as well).
The one thing that really irks me is when Bush got elected, I was relieved that the 2nd Amendment was safe. Turns out, it wasn’t so. I had to fight just as hard protecting Gun Rights under Bush. Luckily, the biggest attack never made his desk. The Democrats tried to get Clinton’s ‘94 gun ban renewed and we fought tooth and nail to kill this because Bush promised he’d sign it if it landed on his desk.
Lastly, a true Conservative realizes the damage illegal immigration does to the country. Bush is openly for illegal immigration, as his record plainly shows.
So, folks, Bush is NOT a conservative. He is neither a fiscal conservative nor a friend of our beloved Constitution. Historians and Economists will look back at his eight years unfavorably.
It’s funny that sometimes I have referred to myself as a conservative just because I backed the war in Iraq. For the most part, I don’t think many people know what it really means to be liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. People, including myself, need to be far more educated if this country is to have a chance.
Bush’s problem is that he just really isn’t all that smart. If he wants to challenge something, I don;t think he is able to come up with logical and convincing arguments to do so. This has been Cheney’s presidency more that it has been Bush’s.
On another note, you mentioned Irshad Manji once, and to be blunt, her writing is pretty ignorant and comes across as more of a rant against Islam than anything. I would suggest a book called “Chasing a Mirage” which is much better researched, and will provide you some insight into the struggle against extremism. I’m about 100 pages into it, and while it is not perfect (he appears to support some questionable leaders), it is certainly much better than Manji’s book.
Thank you for writing this ZS, he has been a complete disaster for the party and while I think history may judge him fairer there is no doubt that this “compassionate conservatism” is just a bullshit way of disgusing a liberal fiscal policy. We conservatives/republicans/libertarians (they are all pretty close in idealology when you get right down to it) don’t think that its the GOVERNMENTS JOB to take care of us. We need to be more self sufficient and rely on private charities more than governmental programs that tend to be inefficient and suck up money we could be spending on national defense, fixing the SS mess, or even paying down our debt (crazy idea huh?). That being said as much as I have contempt for the man he is not as evil/disasterous as the media has portrayed him to be. And ZS, the ONLY reason BJ Bill was able to balance the budget was 2 things, drastically reducing our military size becausee since the cold war ended we have no use for our military everyone is our friend right and welfare reform that was pushed in by the Republican Congress (about the only thing I’ll give Newt credit for) so don’t kid yourself on that plus he had a half dozen chances to take out Bin Laden and that mess in Somalia in 1993 was a major recruiting tool for Al-Qaida. Sorry about the rant but don’t give Clinton much if any credit for the budget balancing. And yes spending has run rampant and thats why republicans lost both houses of Congress (rightly so by the way) because of that and those damn earmarks. I will harp on you to vote for McCain ZS, even though California is a lost cause. He will reduce spending and taxes, just look at his record, and is not perfect on everything but wouldn’t you rather have a candidate you agree with 50-60% of the time compared to 20-0% you would get with Obama?
Scott - The definitions keep changing. I get my definitions from wikipedia.
Raemius - I’ll see if Barnes and Noodle has that one and I’ll look out for it.
Ben - The reason I called Clinton an economic conservative is he cut welfare, which is a good thing. It was Clinton who got us the welfare to work programs. Plus, look at all the vetoes he made. He vetoed a lot of spending.
Bush on the other hand didn’t, and spending went through the roof.
As for McCain vs Obama, that’s like a choice between being kicked in the left nut or the right nut. Keep in mind, my top 2 issues are gun rights and illegal immigration. Both of them get Fs in both categories. I’m voting 3rd party.
But yes, we DO need to pay down our debt, and stop giving so much foreign aid, especially to countries that don’t even like us.
As for Clinton’s other policies, that’s a whole different post. I call him a conservative in economics only. When it came to Civil Liberties or when we had a chance to get Bin Laden, Clinton was bad at both. But we’ve already had these discussions before.
this guy is a nightmare no matter what label you want to slap on him. but no he is neither fiscally nor constitutionally conservative.
I don’t care what they call him. he’s horrible!
Lime & Kate - Agreed.