Dice Have No Memory by Will Bonner

Author:Will Bonner
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Published: 2011-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

Lost in Space

January 23, 2004

We sense that we live in a time set apart.

—George W. Bush, State of the Union, 2004

Never before has the nation been so deeply in debt. Yet, never before have any people been so eager to spend more. On the road to ruination . . . they press down on the accelerator.

Here, from Bill King, are the average annual real increases in domestic discretionary spending:

LBJ 1965–1969 4.3%

Richard Nixon 1970–1975 6.8%

Gerald Ford 1976–1977 8.0%

Jimmy Carter 1978–1981 2.0%

Ronald Reagan 1982–1989 −1.3%

George H.W. Bush 1990–1993 4.0%

Bill Clinton 1994–2001 2.5%

George W. Bush 2002–2004 8.2%

Source: Club for Growth, based on U.S. Budget, Historical Tables, 2004.

We are talking, of course, of the usual slimy programs. George W. Bush, the conservative Republican, is increasing spending more than 300 percent faster than his predecessor, Bill Clinton, the liberal Democrat.

But that is the charm of politics. Its shifty sands cover the creepy tracks of countless crooks and connivers. No sooner has a man piled up a few corrupt positions, policies, and proposals . . . than the winds change, and his whole program is blown away. He re-invents himself as the opportunities present themselves.

“It’s strange how you never know what you’re going to get with a President,” writes Doug Casey. “Few people remember that Franklin Roosevelt ran on what was almost a radical free market platform in 1932, decrying the tax, spend, and regulate policies of Hoover. One might have thought you’d have gotten fiscal conservative with Reagan . . . but his policies sent the deficit through the roof. It was reasonable to anticipate a socialist disaster with Clinton, but government spending grew slower than the overall economy. Baby Bush, few now recall, made noises about personal freedom, and no more nation building in foreign hellholes.

“I’m not sure what conclusion one can draw from all this, apart from the fact that the kind of people who survive in the game of politics long enough to become President are, almost necessarily, pathological liars.”

We do not recall it, but according to legend, if not history, there was a time when Republicans still might have had a claim to some small measure of integrity. The lumpen Republican could hold his head high, for at least his party platform rested on what many took to be eternal verities—spend little, balance the budget, and mind your own business.

Murray Rothbard saw the sand get into the Republican gearbox more than 10 years ago. He wrote:

In the spring of 1981, conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives cried. They cried because, in the first flush of the Reagan Revolution that was supposed to bring drastic cuts in taxes and government spending, as well as a balanced budget, they were being asked by the White House and their own leadership to vote for an increase in the statutory limit on the federal public debt, which was then scraping the legal ceiling of one trillion dollars. They cried because all of their lives they had voted against an increase in public debt, and

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