George W.--master of disguise: spouting patriotic rhetoric and enjoying the support of fellow Republicans, George W. Bush has masqueraded as a conservative while actually advancing a liberal agenda. (Cover Story: False Conservatism).

When Bill Clinton boasted that "the era of big government is over," there were probably more belly laughs than nods. After all, Clinton was widely recognized as a big-spending liberal. He was seen by many as a dangerous demagogue with an insatiable appetite for power, an appetite that might have consumed our liberties if not for public and congressional resistance.

But with the election of supposed conservative George W. Bush, the public vigilance that helped keep Bill Clinton's lust for power in check appears to have waned. Many Republicans and conservatives--who were quick to challenge President Clinton's every power grab--fail to recognize the hypocrisy when President George W. Bush challenges Congress, as he did with a straight face during a radio address on August 17th, to "show spending restraint" lest the president "enforce spending restraint." Promising that his administration "will spend what is truly needed, and not a dollar more," Mr. Bush zeroed in on the Senate for "ignoring fiscal discipline": "I requested $2.4 billion for public housing; the bill moving through the Senate includes $300 million more. I requested $2.2 billion for agricultural research; again, the Senate wants to spend $300 million more." But such statements beg the question: Why is George W. Bush requesting billions of dollars for unconstitutional welfare state activities in the first place ? How can an allegedly "conservative" president be so free with the taxpayers' money?

Unfortunately, although Bush enjoys the reputation of a conservative, his own record shows that he is a liberal. In fact, his liberalism may be more dangerous than that of his immediate predecessor. Bill Clinton, a lifelong Democrat with a far-left pedigree, often provoked resistance from congressional Republicans and conservatives in general. Yet Republican congressmen who refused to support Clinton's liberal policies have willingly supported similar policies when offered by fellow Republican George W. Bush. Consequently, Bush has been more effective than his predecessor, in many ways, in advancing Clintonian liberalism.

Bush's Bloated Budget

A month after becoming president, Mr. Bush explained in a press conference (February 22, 2001) that his budget would reduce the rate at which spending is increasing--but without cutting spending in the absolute sense. "We're going to slow the rate of growth of the budget down," he said at the time. "It should come to [sic] no surprise to anybody that my budget is going to say loud and clear that the rate of growth of the budget, for example, from last year, was excessive. And so we'll be slowing the rate of growth of the budget down."

Bush, in other words, didn't promise to shrink the size of government, but merely to slow the rate of big-government expansion--to put the brakes on the car speeding towards the precipice, but not to stop it, much less change its direction. But in the end, Bush didn't even put on the brakes, but hit the accelerator instead. In the budget he submitted in April 2001, Bush proposed spending $1,961 billion in fiscal 2002 as compared to an estimated $1,856 billion in 2001--a 5.7 percent increase. That, of course, was before September 11th. In a midterm budget summary released in July, the Bush administration estimated fiscal 2002 spending at a whopping $2,032 billion as compared to actual fiscal 2001 spending of $1,864--a nine percent increase. The July budget document also proposed spending $2,138 billion in fiscal 2003, a 5.2 percent increase over 2002. During the Clinton presidency, the rate of increase in the federal budget from one year to the next never exceeded 5.1 percent (1999 to 2000), and it was as low as 2.6 percent (1996 to 1997). The bottom line: Federal spending is increasing at a faster rate with George W. Bush in the White House than it did with Bill Clinton in the White House.

Other budget trends also make the Clinton era appear more fiscally conservative by comparison. When Clinton was president, the annual budget deficits as calculated by the federal government became successively smaller and were eventually replaced with surpluses as high as $236 billion (fiscal 2000). * Bush proposed a $231 billion surplus for fiscal 2002 in the budget he submitted in April 2001. But in the budget he submitted in February of this year, the $231 billion surplus for fiscal 2002 was re-figured as a $106 billion deficit. In the July midterm budget summary submitted just five months later, the $106 billion deficit was re-figured as a $165 billion deficit. Presumably the final figure will be relatively close to the latest estimate, since the fiscal year ends this September 30th. Nevertheless, even a $165 billion deficit is dwarfed by the $290 billion deficit in fiscal 1992 when George Bush the elder was president. Judging by current trends, Americans may someday view the Clinton presidency--shocking though it may seem--as an intermission of relative fiscal discipline between two big-spending presidents named Bush.

How could a surplus originally projected at $231 billion become instead a $165 billion deficit? Why the $396 billion difference? In a speech he gave in Milwaukee on August 14th, President Bush explained, without citing specific numbers: "Right now, we've got some deficits because of the recession and because we're funding the war on terror. But by restraining excessive spending, we can have our budget back in balance. But it's going to require Congress to show some discipline." Congress, however, cannot restrain excessive spending without rejecting many of the president's spending requests.

"Compassionate Conservatism"

Contrary to popular understanding, Bush's proposals for increasing spending apply not just to national defense but to social programs as well. However, since he is not a Democrat, Bush has adopted a new term for the big-government liberalism he espouses: "compassionate conservatism." In an April 30th speech in San Jose, California, Bush explained his philosophy of "compassionate" big government: "It is compassionate to actively help our fellow citizens in need. It is conservative to insist on responsibility and on results." Unfortunately, many have forgotten that using government force to "actively help our fellow citizens in need" used to be called "welfare" (and mustn't be confused with "charity' which is private, voluntary assistance). Moreover, insist[ing] on responsibility and on results" used to be called "regulation," and "conservative" used to mean leaving money in the hands of those who earned it instead of funneling it through Washington with strings attached.

Bush's "compassionate conservatism" speech makes clear that he is not against spending money so long as the spending produces "results." He denies advocating "big government," of course, but the overall thrust of his words betrays him:

[T]here is a role for government. America doesn't need more big government, and we've learned that more money is not always the answer. If a program is failing to serve people, it makes little difference if we spend twice as much or half as much. The measure of true compassion is results.

Yet we cannot have an indifferent government either. We are a generous and caring people. We don't believe in a sink-or-swim society. The policies of our government must heed the universal call of all faiths to love a neighbor as we would want to be loved ourselves. We need a different approach than either big government or indifferent government. We need a government that is focused, effective, and close to the people; a government that does a few things, and does them well.

Taken in isolation, the last 11 words in the above quote summarize very well the American Founders' attitude towards the federal government. In The Federalist, No. 45, James Madison said that federal powers "will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce." The "few things" that the federal government should do well are specifically enumerated in the Constitution. They are, as Madison pointed out, "few and defined," meaning that they are not subject to the whims of future presidents spouting feel-good slogans and moved by the popular issues of the moment. But George W. Bush, like the Clintonites, is no Madisonian. Judging from his actions, his notion of the "few things" that the federal government ought to be doing has little to do with the federal powers actually enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.

Another Education President?

Since the beginning of his presidency, nowhere has George W. Bush shown more of a yen for unconstitutional big government than in the area of education. In his "compassionate conservatism" speech, Bush touted his mammoth education bill signed into law earlier this year, saying that "the new education reforms we have passed in Washington give the federal government a new role in public education." The "new role" includes requiring states to test all third through eighth graders and holding states accountable for results--a move away from local control toward a national education system, despite Bush's rhetoric to the contrary. In his "compassionate conservatism" speech, Bush sugarcoated the new federal oversight thusly: "Schools must meet new and high standards of performance in reading and math that will be proven on tests and posted on the Internet.... And we're giving local schools and teachers unprecedented freedom and resources and training to meet these [federal] goals."

Bush signed the new education bill into law on January 8th at a public school in Hamilton, Ohio. On that occasion, Bush boasted that "We're going to spend more money, more resources [for education], but they'll be directed at methods that work. Not feel-good methods, not sound-good methods, but methods that actually work.... We're going to spend more on our schools, and were going to spend it more wisely." In the budget he submitted a month later, Bush asked for $56.5 billion for the Education Department, a huge 41 percent increase over the Department's budget authority just two years earlier.

Had Clinton attempted to get the same legislation passed, he undoubtedly would have faced tough resistance from conservative Republicans. (Not many years ago, recall, the GOP wanted to abolish the federal Department of Education!) But Bush not only benefited from Democratic liberal support, he happily acknowledged the bipartisanship. With him at the bill's signing was ultra-liberal Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). "I actually like the fellow," Bush said to laughter and applause. "He is a fabulous United States senator." Later in the day, in Kennedy's home state, Bush actually credited Kennedy for making the bill possible: "[A]s a result of his hard work, we put together a good piece of legislation that has put Republicans and Democrats on the side of the schoolchildren in America."

Foreign Follies

In his "compassionate conservatism" talk, Bush claimed: "The same principles of compassion and responsibility apply when America offers assistance to other nations. Nearly half of the world's people still live on less than $2 a day. When we help them, we show our values, our belief in universal human dignity. We serve our interests and gain economic partners." But how does America benefit from gaining "economic partners" when those "partners" are subsidized with our own tax dollars?

Of course, like education spending, foreign aid under Bush is supposed to produce better results than foreign aid under his predecessors. And not surprisingly, like education, Bush proposes spending more, not less, despite foreign aid being unconstitutional: "[T]he old way of pouring vast amounts of money into development aid without any concern for results has failed, often leaving behind misery and poverty and corruption. America's offering a new compact for global development. Greater aid contributions from America must be and will be linked to greater responsibility from developing nations."

Bush continued:

I have proposed a 50-percent increase in our core development assistance over the next three budget years. ... At the end of this three-year period, the level of our annual development assistance will be $5 billion higher than current levels.

This is a record amount of spending. And in return for these funds, we expect nations to rout out corruption, to open their markets, to respect human rights, and to adhere to the rule of law. [Emphasis added.]

One of the beneficiaries of U.S. foreign aid is Russia. This "partner" in our war against terrorism provides nuclear technology to Iran and has just confirmed its intent to sign a $40 billion economic deal with Iraq. Both Iran and Iraq are part of what Bush has called (correctly, in our view) the "axis of evil." So much for the quid pro quo Bush expects.

Even more appalling was the Bush administration's aid to the Taliban of Afghanistan--the folks who harbored Osama bin Laden and his terrorist training camps. In May of 2001, for instance, the Bush administration announced a $43 million dollar aid package to Afghanistan, which was intended in part, according to Secretary of State Colin Powell, to alleviate the "impact of the [Taliban-imposed] ban on poppy cultivation." After September 11th, the Bush administration turned on the Taliban--but the money spigots to Afghanistan remained open. On October 4th, just three weeks after September 11th, President Bush announced a $320 million aid package to Afghanistan and Afghan refugees in neighboring Central Asian republics. The money that had been going to the "bad guys" was now being diverted to the rival warlords and factions with whom we've aligned ourselves in the war on terrorism. Such is the perverse calculus of foreign aid, whether administered by a Republican or a Democrat administration.

But what of Bush's war on terrorism and the "axis of evil"? Isn't the president doing a good job ridding the world of al-Qaeda and their terrorist sponsors and associates?

The war against terrorism will never be won so long as we accommodate state sponsors of terrorism such as Russia and China. It will never end so long as we conduct it under the auspices of the terrorist-infested United Nations, where Syria--another state sponsor of terrorism--currently sits on the Security Council (and even chaired it during June of this year). It certainly won't be won by replacing one terrorist-friendly regime with another--as has just occurred in Afghanistan.

Of course, Push puts a different face on the matter. In his January 29th "State of the Union" address, he observed:

In four short months, our nation has comforted the victims, begun to rebuild New York and the Pentagon, rallied a great coalition, captured, arrested, and rid the world of thousands of terrorists, destroyed Afghanistan's terrorist training camps, saved a people from starvation, and freed a country from brutal oppression....

America and Afghanistan are now allies against terror. We'll be partners in rebuilding that country. And this evening we welcome the distinguished interim leader of a liberated Afghanistan: Chairman Hamid Karzai.

Less than a month after attending Bush's speech, where he heard the president denounce Iran--as well as North Korea and Iraq--as a member of the "axis of evil," Afghanistan's Chairman Karzai went to Iran, where he met Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and told a news conference: "Our presence here is like going to your brother's house, because Iran is our brother country. Iran is not only a neighbor, but also a friend." Then in August, Khatami visited Karzai in Afghanistan.

"Across the world, governments have heard this message: You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists," Bush said to applause in his "compassionate conservatism" speech. Hamid Karzai obviously did not get that message.

Still, doesn't the need to protect the homeland justify the war on terrorism? Government must protect the homeland, which sometimes requires waging war. But when war is waged, the decision should not reside with a single individual. At least, that was the thinking of the Founding Fathers, who assigned to Congress alone the power to "declare war." But that's not Bush's thinking. In his June 1st speech to West Point's graduating class, the president outlined a doctrine of "preemptive action when necessary" in the "war on terror." This would involve military strikes, without warning or congressional approval. The likely first target of that doctrine is Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

Furthermore, Mr. Bush doesn't recognize the congressional role in committing the United States to another war in the Persian Gulf. "I'll continue to consult," he told reporters on August 16th. "Listen, it's a healthy debate for people to express their opinion.... But America needs to know, I'll be making up my mind based upon the latest intelligence and how best to protect our own country plus our friends and allies."

But constitutionally, that decision is not Bush's to make. As James Madison wrote in 1798: "The constitution supposes, what the History of all governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has, accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature." And as Abraham Lincoln observed in 1848: "Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our [constitutional] Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us." Bush began behaving like a king less than a month after taking office, when he launched his first air strike against Iraq without seeking congressional approval. Of course, Clinton also usurped congressional war powers, but he had to contend with more protest from GOP congressmen than Bus h has.

Another dangerous Bush policy justified by the war against terrorism is the gradual consolidation of police powers in Washington. Under our system of government, homeland security is supposed to be multilayered-- entailing not just the U.S. military but independent local police departments and even our constitutionally protected right to "keep and bear arms." The Bush administration supported federalizing airport baggage and passenger screeners as a means to enhance security (but has so far opposed arming pilots). It supported the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, which expanded the list of crimes deemed terrorist acts and expanded federal wiretapping and surveillance authority. It has proposed more federal money for police and fire departments, which will lead to more control. And it has proposed, and is lobbying strongly for, a new Department of Homeland Security.

One legitimate way to protect the homeland is to secure the borders. But Bush is moving in exactly the opposite direction by calling for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which, like the EU in Europe, is intended to become a regional government, allowing for unrestricted movement of North, Central, and South Americans across any national boundary in the New World--including our own. Bush is also undermining the very concept of borders or nationhood by keeping our country entangled in the United Nations.

"Safety Nets"

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap," observed Thomas Jefferson, "we should soon want bread." Jefferson, an authentic farmer and legitimate advocate of limited government, understood that the central government has no constitutional role in agriculture. George W. Bush, a dilettante rancher and phony conservative, violated Jefferson's wise council when he signed an obese new farm bill on May 13th.

President Bush views the Jeffersonian concept of limited government as harmful to agriculture. In his August 15th speech at Mount Rushmore, Bush noted that "some of us in this audience ... took a little heat" for supporting the bill. But why? Could it be because, in Bush's words, "there's $180 billion in that bill of taxpayers' money to help our farm and ranch community"? Or because the bill moves agriculture policy away from a 1996 law intended to wean farmers off the federal money spigot? Or because it increases direct farm program spending by $73.5 billion over 10 years? Or because it also contains $243 billion for food stamps? Actually, none of the above. "We took heat over it," Bush claimed at Mount Rushmore, where the visage of Jefferson and three other revered Americans towered above him, "because I guess some people didn't understand how important the farm economy is"--by which he meant the federally subsidized farm economy. At the signing ceremony, President Bush described the subsidy-larded farm bil l as "generous" in providing "a safety net for farmers," and "compassionate" in making legal immigrants residing in the country for five years eligible for food stamps.

No big-government issue aroused more controversy during the Clinton era than health care. Hillary Clinton in particular became almost synonymous with comprehensive federal controls on health care--what used to be called, in more enlightened times, "socialized medicine." Yet it wasn't a tax-engorged left-wing liberal, but "conservative" George W. Bush, who said, in his January 29th State of the Union Address, "Americans who have lost their jobs need our help and I support extending unemployment benefits and direct assistance for health care coverage.... I ask Congress to join me this year to enact a patients' bill of rights, to give uninsured workers credits to help buy health coverage, to approve an historic increase in the spending for veterans' health, and to give seniors a sound and modern Medicare system that includes coverage for prescription drugs."

How It All Adds Up

At the rate George Bush is going, by the time the next president takes the oath of office, there may be little left in our health care system to socialize. Or in education, agriculture, or any other sector in which the federal government chooses to meddle. In his "compassionate conservatism" speech in San Jose, Bush inverted the meaning of the word "self-government" as capably as Clinton could have: "All of these policies and all of these areas serve the same vision. We are using an active government to promote self-government.... The aim of these policies is not to spend more money or spend less money; it is to spend on what works. The measure of compassion is more than good intentions, it is good results."

Prior to World War II, many sincere people, who undoubtedly also viewed themselves as "compassionate," tried to find good in the Fascist policies of Italian premier Benito Mussolini by convincing themselves that "he at least made the trains run on time." Did he have "good intentions"; did he achieve "good results"? Many thought he did, but subsequent events proved them wrong. The dictatorial powers Mussolini accumulated and exercised worked to the detriment of the Italian people, not to their advantage.

Bush is not Il Duce. But the nature of power is the same regardless of who is entrusted to exercise it. Regardless of circumstances or intent, Lord Acton's famous dictum still applies: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Even if he is totally immune from the corrupting influence of power, his "compassionate conservatism" will fail to produce "good results" for the simple reason that more costly and intrusive government will sap the nation of more of its economic strength and further discourage entrepreneurship. And even if he scrupulously avoids using the centralized powers he seeks for wrong ends, there is no guarantee that his successors will be as scrupulous. Yet there are several good reasons to believe that Bush is fully capable of abusing power. For one thing, he already has, as in the case of war powers. Moreover, he is beholden to the same Insider Establishment that has shaped U.S. policy for decades (see the article on page 19). Finally, Bush has every incentive to abuse his powers under the camouflage his pseudo-conservatism gives him. No matter how far Bush moves to the left, the liberals in Congress and the media can be counted on to propose even more outrageously liberal policies, making Bush look conservative by comparison.

Most Americans who love their country, and who oppose corruption in government, apparently had little difficulty in detecting Clinton's usurpations. By being more vigilant then, and by pressuring Congress to do the right thing, they managed to limit the damage Clinton was able to do. The continuation of the Clinton legacy under George W. Bush can be limited as well--if we're willing to look beyond the Bush image and respond accordingly.

* Due to the way the federal government "balances" its books, the national debt continued to climb even during the period of surpluses.