Now that the dust has settled and Obama has been President for almost a year now, I think it is time to look back on former President Bush’s terms and evaluate his claims of being conservative based on his actions:
- No Child Left Behind Act - this was an act supported by George W. Bush in collaboration with the late Senator Ted Kennedy (who should've succumbed to a brain tumor much sooner than he did, proving that Satan does exist). This expanded the Federal tax dollars spent on education and thus a bigger government budget. Not conservative policy.
- USA PATRIOT Act - OK, this is a third rail and defines a clear divide between libertarians and conservatives. I would include liberals, but liberals only care about supposed civil rights violations when they aren't in power. You don't see many lawsuits from the ACLU brought about in New England, right? Yet I am sure many of those local communities have the same "civil rights" issues that the ones in red states do, if not more so. Anyway, I do think that this legislation wasn't really thought through and passed in haste. Regardless of the intention, the abuse of it is what I really fear (Janet The Manly didn't take long to declare right-wingers to be terrorists). Not really conservative, but willing to let it is slide for now.
- Establishment of Homeland Security Department - Really, did we need one when we already had a Department of Defense? Why not just consolidate all the relevant agencies under that department? DOD is not a strictly military agency anyway. Not conservative.
- Tax Cuts - that was conservative
- Federal Spending Growth - this may very well have been what cost the Republicans in 2006. Many conservatives were truly upset with the rapid growth of government spending in spite of tax cuts. Bush's excuse was that because his party controlled Congress, he would support any legislation they passed. Talk about fiscal cowardice. Instead of leading Congress in the direction they should have gone in, like so many Presidents of the past, he refused to lead and allowed the RINOs to take control of Congressional policy. Oh, and did I mention that the national debt went up 4 Trillion while he was in office? Not conservative.
- Social Security Reform - While the mainstream press called this the "third-rail" of politics, this was something that everyone except for the one demographic who votes most really wanted. Even though it didn't go far enough for my tastes (outlawing such a program for everyone 40 and under would have done it), it was something that went in the right direction. Therefore, this was conservative.
- Medicare Expansion - While this goes under "Federal Spending Growth" this deserves a special case because President Bush pushed this legislation through without popular support, except for the AARP. This was not a conservative policy and I am surprised it didn't cost him 2002 seats. I guess we were just hopeful then.
- Immigration - President Bush failed to protect our borders. Instead he pandered to the Hispanic radicals and opposed any kind of illegal alien enforcement, short of minor enforcement. He didn't even bother to attempt to reform the our slow Visa approval process, which is the primary cause of illegal immigration in the first place. On top of that, when Americans stepped up and decided to protect our borders themselves, he referred to them as vigilantes. Oh, and don't get me started on Ramos and Campean. All in all, the President failed in his duty to uphold immigration laws during his term. Not a conservative in the slightest here.
- Intelligence Programs - President Bush relied too much on Clinton holdovers in the intelligence community. As such, we had bad Intelligence on Iraq (there were no "stockpiles" of WMDs, although there were indications of WMD-making materials) and he never bothered to hold George Tenet accountable for his repeated incompetencies (9/11, Iraq, etc.). Instead, he set up the precedent for establishing czars by setting up an intelligence czar. A better option would have been to incorporate all intelligence agencies into the Navel Intelligence agency and consolidate all information there under military control. But no, instead of taking the opportunity to clean up some of the government messes we have, he instead made it bigger. Not conservative.
- Foreign Policy - You know, I'm going to claim neutrality here because conservatives have different viewpoints on foreign policy.
- War Policy - While I was OK with going to war in order to dismantle and destroy the Islamic terrorist networks that threaten us, the wars were mishandled once the US military conquered the country they were in. Instead of lifting many of the stupid rules of engagement that handicap our troops, he maintained them and allowed more troops to die than needed as a result. When you go to war, you need to take it seriously and resolve it quickly. War is economic suicide when prolonged for any nation (case in point, the War on Poverty). However, this viewpoint is not shared by conservatives, so I cannot declare this as not conservative because I'm not sure if it is even political. Oh, and formal war declarations with stated objectives should have been made by Congress here as well. They really passed the buck on that one.
- Abortion - Despite his Judicial nominees, he never really took a moral stand on this issue during his terms as President. The most he did was stop funding overseas abortions with tax payer dollars (something that Obama restarted immediately). He didn't even bother to veto a budget that funded pro-abortion organizations like Planned Parenthood, nor did he support a pro-life bill proposed by he-who-shall-not-be-named. Word has it that Laura Bush herself was pro-choice, which means he wore this issue on his sleeve in order to attract the single-issue suckers, I mean, voters. Not conservative.
- Capitalism - He opposed it and supported Corporatism over free markets. That's why he bailed out the banks and did not seek to deregulate all the regulated industries. He may have believed that he was supporting capitalism in the process, but he was not. Oh, and don't forget him signing off on unemployment benefits. Not conservative.
- Secretary Picks - He allowed Clinton holdovers and obvious Statists to run many important agencies. Norm Mineta, Michael Chertoff, and Hack Paulson are just a few of the really bad picks to run some of the most important agencies in the Federal government. It really would have been better if he just randomly selected people from the phone book there. Not conservative.
- Judicial Picks - He was conservative here, for the most part. Harriet Miers was the only person who exposed what he probably really wanted as a Federal judge.
So in retrospect, George W. Bush was not a conservative, despite what we were lead to believe. Now, I know that not everyone can be 100% conservative, but at the same time he has enough differences because of his actions or inaction on certain issues and his overall policy stances to accurately say he was a Statist.
To be fair, there were a lot of issues that were stalled or stopped by Congress, but again, he never really stepped up and lead his own party, which could have taken care of a lot of these issues during his first six years. I will say that he was not a Socialist, but definitely a Statist.
For the next Presidential election, I urge my fellow conservatives to not be fooled. Just because someone claims to be one or is given a ringing endorsement from a conservative pundit, it does not mean it is true. Always look at their background and actions as a politician. That is always a better way of determining if a politician is conservative.