(I wrote the following article for Human Events, but apparently it was too controversial and was removed after about 100 e-letters of commentary, both favorable and critical. Read here’s the original op-ed, uncensured.)
By Mark Skousen
This week the Senate grinches stole Christmas. The Obama Nation is getting Obama Care.
It’s easy to blame the sixty Democrats, as the Wall Street Journal does, for “the worse bill ever.” It solemnly declares: “These 60 Democrats are creating a future of epic increases in spending, taxes and command–and control regulation.”
True enough. But what’s the root cause of this disaster?
Sorry, friends, it’s not the Democrats, nor the American people who elected them.
The real culprits are two “conservative” Republicans who ran the show the previous eight years: George W. Bush, and his “master political strategist” Karl Rove. If it weren’t for these two fools in the White House, the Democrats wouldn’t have sixty Senators, including a professional comedian from Minnesota, to close off debate and ram down our throats a bill worse than Hillary Care.
The fact is that the Bush & Rove comedy act pushed through a litany of ruinous government policies that led to the lowest approval numbers in history:
–the undeclared and costly War in Iraq and its stepchild the unconstitutional Patriot Act.
–the monstrous No Child Left Behind Act that dramatically increased federal intervention in private education.
–the Prescription Drug Act that gave the American people another benefit-corrupted entitlement and unfunded liability.
–large and growing deficits and national debt (according to the Cato Institute, George W. Bush was the biggest spender since LBJ: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/12/19/george-w-bush-biggest-spender-since-lbj/)
–the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, largely due to their failure to reform government-sponsored agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
The supply-side tax cuts were probably the only major piece of economic legislation that Bush/Rove deserve credit for, but even then, they blundered in not making the tax cuts permanent. So now even if the Republicans take back Capitol Hill in the 2010 elections, all President Obama has to do is veto an extension of the Bush tax cuts, a voila, taxes will increase automatically.
In short, we are paying a heavy price for the “compassionate conservativism” of Bush/Rove.
Once Obama Care becomes law, like Medicare and other “Great Society” programs, it will never end. We will be stuck with national health care for the rest of our lives.
And how are Bush and Rove rewarded? Fortunately, we aren’t seeing much of George Bush, who is quietly in retirement in Texas.
The tragedy is Karl Rove, who has been rewarded by conservatives. He’s treated like a triumphant general on Fox News almost every night, and was signed on as a regular columnist in the prestigious Wall Street Journal.
Shame.
In liberty, AEIOU,
Mark Skousen
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
So there should be no public healthcare policy? And what is the way forward?
I won’t even dignify George W. Bush and Karl Rove by labeling them conservatives. However, I guess it depends on what a person’s definition of a conservative is as to whether George W. Bush and Karl Rove are considered conservatives or not. Certainly intheir own minds they are. I don’t think either one of them is a conservative. To me a conservative is one who believes in limited government, sound financial actions, a desire to protect this nation from all foreign adversaries, the worth of the individual and the importance of the family as the basic unit of society. In my book George W. Bush fails in almost all categories. He certainly didn’t exhibit any advocacy of limited government when he enacted No Child Left Behind or the Patriot Act or creating the Department of Homeland Security to name just a few. He didn’t exhibit conservative actions when he ran huge budget deficits or when he bailed out some giant business corporations. He certainly didn’t exhibit conservative principles when he refused to build the fence along, even after congress passed the law, the southern border of the USA to keep illegals out of this country or when he allowed himself to be almost completely focused on Iraq and largely ignored Osama bin Laden who was responsible for the planning and execution of 9/11. As far as I am concerned George W. Bush is a wolf in sheep’s clothing when it comes to being a conservative.
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A conservative is one who is committed to small, limited federal government that does nothing but what is specifically authorized by the USA Constitution. There is no such thing as a Big Government conservative. That is an oxymoron.
I won’t even dignify George W. Bush and Karl Rove by labeling them conservatives. However, I guess it depends on what a person’s definition of a conservative is as to whether George W. Bush and Karl Rove are considered conservatives or not. Certainly intheir own minds they are. I don’t think either one of them is a conservative. To me a conservative is one who believes in limited government, sound financial actions, a desire to protect this nation from all foreign adversaries, the worth of the individual and the importance of the family as the basic unit of society. In my book George W. Bush fails in almost all categories. He certainly didn’t exhibit any advocacy of limited government when he enacted No Child Left Behind or the Patriot Act or creating the Department of Homeland Security to name just a few. He didn’t exhibit conservative actions when he ran huge budget deficits or when he bailed out some giant business corporations. He certainly didn’t exhibit conservative principles when he refused to build the fence along, even after congress passed the law, the southern border of the USA to keep illegals out of this country or when he allowed himself to be almost completely focused on Iraq and largely ignored Osama bin Laden who was responsible for the planning and execution of 9/11. As far as I am concerned George W. Bush is a wolf in sheep’s clothing when it comes to being a conservative.
+1