GOP: back to its roots?

Amid burgeoning federal deficits and the accelerating expansion of government, many conservative Republicans doubtless are asking themselves: What on earth is wrong with the GOP? According to Robert Ekelund and Mark Thornton of the Mises Institute, "the rampant fiscal irresponsibility of the Republicans is not a mystery; they are merely returning to their historical roots. The Republican Party was established as a party of big government and economic intervention. Their reputation as a party of limited government is of more recent vintage and stands on a flimsy foundation."

The presidency of Abraham Lincoln, note Ekelund and Thornton, actually gave birth to the expression "New Deal": "Lincoln's massive expansion of the federal government into the economy led [newspaper editor] Daniel Elazar to claim, " ... one could easily call Lincoln's presidency the "New Deal" of the 1860s.' Republicans established a much larger, more powerful, and more destructive federal government in the 1860s, just as Bush and the Republican Congress are doing today. In fact, modern Republicans are almost a mirror image of the original party."

The GOP's reputation as a party of limited government and fiscal restraint owes a great deal to the fact that "the Democratic Party adopted even bigger government policies, particularly with the election of Franklin Roosevelt and the subsequent New Deal."