I've heard it all my life. "If you we could only get a real conservative in there, then we could 'save the country."
Just a few years ago, the Republican Party controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. But as usual, whenever a Republican is in the White House, spending went up twice as fast as it did during the previous Democrat's presidency.
Don't believe me? Let's do the math. Spending in George W. Bush's last year was $2.98 trillion. In Obama's last year it was $3.85 trillion. That's an $870 billion increase in 8 years or $108 billion per year increase on average while Obama was president.
Giving Donald Trump a pass on 2020 (although I shouldn't), Donald Trump took spending from $3.85 trillion in 2016 to $4.44 trillion in 2019 - just three years - an increase of $590 billion total or $196 billion per year. So, not quite twice as fast as it went up under Obama, but 81% faster.
Congratulations, Donald.
The previous Republican presidents are all the same. Bush increased spending twice as fast as Clinton, Reagan twice as fast as Carter, Nixon/Ford twice as fast as JFK/LBJ.
Yes, the Republican presidents managed to raise spending twice as fast as the infamous "guns and butter" of the so-called Great Society.
The explanation for this is always the same. Those presidents weren't "real conservatives." Or, in Trump's case, there were too many "RINOs" in Congress.
Whenever I ask for a real world example of a "true conservative" or a non-RINO Republican, I always get the same answer: Calvin Coolidge.
Ok, fine, but if there was only one guy who ever got elected who was a "real" conservative, why isn't he the RINO?
The truth is conservatism, the real variety, has nothing to do with small or limited government. All that free market talk was really just marketing employed during a limited time during the late 20th/early 21st century. Trump's enormous success lay precisely in abandoning that messaging and returning the Republican Party to its conservative roots. And it has nothing to do with limited government OR natural, inalienable rights.
That's not necessarily meant as a criticism. It's merely a fact.
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