Republican "Laissez Faire" Legacy

Bush, the Federal Reserve and the Congress have spent the last 8 years following an aggressively liberal economic policy that makes anything attempted by Lyndon Johnson pale into insignificance.

For instance, the last 8 years has seen the following:
1)Massive increase in the welfare state through the establishment of a vast new entitlement program, the prescription drugs for seniors, as well as ongoing increases in spending for Medicaid and SCHIP. Health expenditures in the last 8 years have increased 85.6%, an increase of $327.1 billion.
2) Massive increase in Federal spending on Education, up 103.3%, an increase of $34.6 billion
3) Expansion of farm subsidies. Agriculture expenditures up 26.2%, an increase of $19.7 billion
4) Substantial increase in Federal spending on public housing and urban development. Housing and Urban development spending is up 69.8%, an increase of $21.5 billion.
5) Huge increase in spending on Transportation, which is up 65.1%, an increase of $27.1 billion.
6) Total Federal spending has increased 63.8%, an increase of $1.149 TRILLION per year.
Source: Federal Spending Pages 78 - 79
7)We’ve had a continuation of the “Affirmative action mortgage loan program” that was given teeth by the Clinton administration. Government-sponsored entities Freddie and Fannie have purchased trillions of dollars in questionable loans, while Congress assured us there was no risk from these agencies.
8) Along with the spending increases, the income tax system has gotten even more “progressive”. Despite some tax rate cuts, the upper income earners are paying more of the tax burden than ever before.
* The top 1% of income earners pay 39% of all income taxes, up from 37% when Bush took office.
* The top 25% of all income earners now pay 86% of all income taxes, up from 84% when Bush took office.
* Individual income tax collections are up 21.4% and corporate tax collections are up 66.6% since Bush took office.
Source: Tax Collections Page 31
9) Along with the spending and tax increases, government regulations have increased enormously. The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) -- the master set of books containing all the federal regulations -- occupies 25 feet of shelf space at the library of Congress and has over 73,000 pages. It's pages of regulations -- which are double-columned, double-sided, fine print -- would stretch 4.5 miles if laid end to end.

Over 51,000 new regulations have been added since 1995, when Republicans took control of Congress. The Bush administration has added over 30,000 of these. So much for "Republican deregulation. Right now, some 50+ federal agencies, commissions, departments etc are working on finalizing over 3000 additional regulations.

Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute

These regulations are promulgated and pushed by regulators and bureaucrats from over 100 federal agencies and commissions, the most well-known of which include, besides the IRS, the FRB and FDIC, the EPA, FDA, SEC, CFTC, NLRB, FTC, FCC, FERC, FEMA, FAA, CAA, INS, OHSA, CPSC, NHTSA, EEOC, BATF, DEA, NIH, FNMA, FHA and the FLMA.

In addition to these economic regulatory agencies and their interference, we have a fiat money supply under the control of a central bank with virtually unlimited power to manipulate that currency as it sees fit. First Greenspan, and then Bernanke, piloted the Fed on a relentless course of expanding the money supply and credit.

And now that we are at the end of Bush’s administration, all the politicians in the halls of power want us to believe that because Bush has an “R” after his name, the last 8 years have been an orgy of “laissez-faire” “deregulation“, cutting of government services and spending, “tax cuts for the rich” and “tax cuts for big business”.

And what do they think we need to solve our problems? More government spending and more regulation!

Did I even mention the Billions that is being squandered in Iraq?

(HT to a commenter Michael Smith @ Cafe Hayek )