The Big Government Party Of Small Government
Matt Welch over at Reason reviews Cato's new essay collection, The Republican Revolution 10 Years Later, and finds a whole lot of bloat in the boat. Here's a quote from Stephen Moore, who helped draft the Contract with America budget for fiscal year 1996:

"Under President Bush (and a Republican Congress) federal outlays increased 28 percent between FY01 and FY05," Moore writes. "Nondefense discretionary spending increased 34 percent during these four years. That fiscal policy is exactly the opposite of what was promised by Republican leaders when they first came to power in the 1990s," Moore writes. "The tragedy is that many of the Republicans who led the revolution have settled into power, become too comfortable with their perks and authority, and are now mirror images of what they replaced. The Republicans are now spending money faster than the Democrats ever did and have forgotten why voters put them in power in the first place."

But, as Matt observes, "You don't have to cherry-pick to find quotes like that." Here are a few more choice morsels he pulled:

* Cato President Ed Crane: "There are too many opponents of liberty within the Republican Party... Many in the Republican Party have focused exclusively on tax cuts and growing the economy without dealing with the tougher job of limiting government to its proper size....That strategy has sadly oriented the party away from a focus on individual freedom and restoration of constitutional government."

* The Competitive Enterprise Institute's Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr.: "Most people assumed that Republican politicians replacing Democrats on Capitol Hill in 1995 would lead to small-government, anti-regulation policies. That assumption turned out to be wrong."

* Cato representative-government guy John Samples: "The Republicans in power have used partisan gerrymandering to prolong their control of Congress, a practice they denounced when the Democrats held power."

* Cato telecom chief Adam Thierer: "Many Republican policymakers rallied around the cry to get the government's 'hands off the Internet!' If we judge the GOP by those promises, then the last 10 years of Republican rule are generally a failure."

* Cato education analyst David Salisbury: "Recent federal education spending increases have been massive. Gone is the idea that there is no constitutional role for the federal government in the nation's schools. Instead, the Department of Education has been adopted as the Republicans' favored stepchild. The last 10 years have been a great disappointment to people who felt that the 1994 elections signaled an effort to cut the federal government and remove from it areas such as education where it had no legitimate constitutional role."

* Cato criminal justice specialist Timothy Lynch: "With respect to criminal justice policies, the Republicans not only squandered their mandate but now also preside over a burgeoning federal law enforcement bureaucracy....Instead of a revolution, the GOP has turned its back on the Tenth Amendment and embraced a big-government agenda."

Matt further notes:

Few of the big-picture laments will come as a surprise to readers of Reason, but the detail in which these and other authors document the across-the-board betrayal of limited-government principles makes it a must-read even for those whose libertarian cherries were popped long before Terry Schiavo, "intelligent design," and the stem-cell ban.

For the record: I'm a fiscal conservative. The so-called "small government" Republicans are compulsive shoppers with no credit card limits in sight.