More and more conservatives are starting to notice.

In the first three years of the Bush administration, government spending has climbed - in real, inflation-adjusted terms - by a staggering 15.6 percent. That far outstrips the budget growth in Clinton's first three years, when real spending climbed just 3.5 percent. Under the first President Bush, the comparable figure was 8.3 percent; under Ronald Reagan, 6.8 percent, and under Jimmy Carter, 13.3 percent. No, that's not a mistake: Bush is a bigger spender than Carter was.

To be sure, Bush's budgets have had to account for Sept. 11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But even when defense spending is excluded, discretionary spending has soared by nearly 21 percent in Bush's first three years. In Clinton's first triennium, nondefense discretionary spending declined slightly. If their budgets were all you had to go by, you might peg Bush for the Democrat and Clinton for the Republican.

It seems a significant part (but by no means all-) of the additional government spending can be attributed to the recent military campaigns in Afghanistan & Iraq and the resulting need to beef up homeland security. Yes -- all of this was caused by the Sept.11 terrorist attacks, and the pro-war crowd insists there is only one credible conclusion/response. However, some libertarian "War on Terror" sceptics (e.g. my SPD buddy Jon Goff) seem to think it's mostly a convenient excuse for unrelated porkbarrel spending as well as restricting personal freedoms and civil liberties at home. Jon thinks it would be better to simply stop meddling in the Middle East while adopting a more isolationist foreign policy.

It would be interesting to know if a Democratic candidate running as a champion of small FEDERAL government and states rights (guns, abortion, taxes etc.) could win against Bush in 2004... It would of course represent a drastic departure from what the Democrats currently stand for, but bear in mind that the "liberal elite" once was able to maintain a congressional majority by keeping the federal government out of local race politics etc. in the South. This power sharing agreement with white conservative southern voters only ended in the early 1960s, with desegregation. Maybe the Demos need to reach out to some of these groups again.

MARCU$

It seems a significant part (but by no means all-) of the additional government spending can be attributed to the recent military campaigns in Afghanistan & Iraq and the resulting need to beef up homeland security.

Depends on what you mean by significant, but the complaints are not about that part--they're about bloated farm bills, an education bill written by Ted Kennedy, and a massive expansion of a Medicare system that needs dramatic reform instead.

However, some libertarian "War on Terror" sceptics (e.g. my SPD buddy Jon Goff) seem to think it's mostly a convenient excuse for unrelated porkbarrel spending as well as restricting personal freedoms and civil liberties at home. Jon thinks it would be better to simply stop meddling in the Middle East while adopting a more isolationist foreign policy.

Yes, Jon is as naive now on foreign policy as he used to be on space vehicle design...

It would be interesting to know if a Democratic candidate running as a champion of small FEDERAL government and states rights (guns, abortion, taxes etc.) could win against Bush in 2004

Possibly, as long as the foreign policy continued to emphasize preemption and reforming the Middle East. He or she would get my vote, and possibly that of many Republicans. But such an unlikely creature could not be nominated by the current Democratic Party.

PLLLEEEAAASSEEE!!! Der Schlickmeister slashed the military budget out of sheer loathing, not because he was emotionally over burdened by a deficit he wanted fixed.

It's his fault we HAVE to spend the money in Iraq and Afganistan, and Liberia and...shall I go on? I'd rather live here with a huge deficit than live here with every extremist in the world banging at our doors trying to take us apart at the seams.

Let me say this yet again, this is WWIII, and we have to pay for it LATER, not now. Will my grand children be paying for it, probably, but lets leave them a country where they have the freedom and ability to do so.

Maybe the French and Germans should pay back some of the money we GAVE them under the Marshall Plan, OR how much would we save if we suspended payments to third world countries for six months or a year? I'll not hold my breath, by the way.

By Dr. Pournelle's count this would be WWIV, WWIII being the "70 Years War" aka Cold War. He would argue that this one is optional; I would argue that events have overtaken our ability to crawl back into our isolationist hole at this point.

The rapid bloating of the increasingly imperial in mind Federal Bureaucracy comes to me as no great shock, nor would it I'd think to any regular reader of Pournelle's Chaos Manor site.
It's not quite the free-flowing conversation of the old jerryp conference on Bix, but I digress.

Those of us who remember history are being doomed to watch those around us who don't repeat it: there is plenty of precedent on how to deal with the situation in Iraq, all of them involving the use of loyal Client States.

THAT is the main reason that the UN turns out to have mattered now: although we wouldn't want UN peacekeepers per se in Iraq, EU members with small but relatively modern (compared to the Arabs) armies are ideal for occupation, although they all possess bagagge in the area.

Using Ghurka's (or similar) for a slice of the oil money to self-finance has been floated as a balloon by some.

Interesting Times Indeed.

Hi Rand. I will deal with your other comments later. Just a quickie about domestic spending:

>> It seems a significant part (but by no means
>> all-) of the additional government spending
>> can be attributed to the recent military
>> campaigns in Afghanistan & Iraq and the
>> resulting need to beef up homeland security.

> Depends on what you mean by significant, but
> the complaints are not about that part--they're
> about bloated farm bills, an education bill
> written by Ted Kennedy, and a massive expansion
> of a Medicare system that needs dramatic reform
> instead.

Considering "Shrub" ran as a "compassionate conservative", he really did not have a choice did he? Do you really expect him to preach the virtues of self-reliance and small government while key GOP constituents in North Carolina, the Midwest and Pennsylvania are hurting thanks to the recession? The farm bill was done to protect farmers in the Heartland, while the textile tariffs(?) in North Carolina were deemed necessary because of the 2002 elections. The prescription drugs initiative is important to elderly voters, who otherwise might be more likely to vote for the Democrats in places like Florida. Etcetera.
---
Some Republicans seem to think he doesn't need to pander to the political center/left anymore, but Karl Rove is smarter than that. I think they are afraid of making the same mistakes as Newt Gingrich did during the mid-1990s -- and the President does not want to be seen as somebody who is indifferent to the economic plight of ordinary voters.

MARCU$