Alan Greenspan, recently retired chairman of the Federal Reserve and life-long Republican, recently lambasted President Bush and the former Republican Congress this past weekend. In his new memoir, Greenspan accuses Bush and company of betraying “principle for power”. He writes, “The Republicans in Congress lost their way. They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither.”
Unfortunately, Greenspan’s criticism is both accurate and true. Over the past six years, the former Republican Congress and President Bush have betrayed basic conservative principles.
Greenspan specifically criticizes “runaway deficit spending” and in particular the fact that the White House and Congress allowed a Clinton-era produced budget surplus to turn in to a Bush-era produced deficit.
One should note my wording. While President Clinton held office when the federal budget moved from red to black (the Clinton-era), it is not fair to say this was his achievement alone. Bush-opponents love to forget that Clinton had a Republican Congress keeping him in line. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and later Denny Hastert wielded a legitimately conservative Congress who practiced what they preached: fiscal discipline.
It appears that the partisan divide in Washington at the time actually produced good policy (at least from Congress). The election of Bush seemed to usher in a new Congress-White House relationship, however. While this new partnership was given the opportunity to execute conservative principles and fix a number of problems once and for all, it failed miserably.
According to Greenspan, Bush “…didn’t want to challenge former House Speaker Dennis Hastert.” Apparently, Bush thought that he could control Hastert better by “not antagonizing him”. Believe it or not, Mr. President, even Republicans need to be antagonized sometimes.
It seems that since Bush did not want to antagonize the Speaker, nor likely, be seen as fighting with other Republicans, that conservative principle fell by the way side, and Republicans, drunk with power, started acting like Democrats.
Unfortunately this behavior extended beyond fiscal discipline (or lack thereof). The collective congressional Republican Party started acting like Clinton and Monica (only with male pages and prostitution rings of course) and government has grown larger and faster than even FDR could have dreamed of.
Perhaps being out of power is the best thing for the Republican Party right now. It’s almost like when your parents sent you to your room when you were younger. You thought about your actions and came out a better person (or at least better behaved). The only difference is our American parents have sent us to our room for at least two years.
