Recent ‘Conservative’ Presidents Expanded Government

In the past 28 years America has elected two presidents from the “conservative” party, the one that claims to stand for lower taxes, responsible spending and limited government. Both have been named Bush.

Under these two presidents your taxes have been raised and national debt nearly doubled. The largest entitlement program in 40 years was piled on top of a labyrinth of federal entitlement programs already teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. One of the first acts of President George W. Bush was to federalize education. He also launched a billion-dollar war that was not paid for and greatly empowered the federal government’s breadth and powers to monitor, probe and grope American citizens.

If any of the Founders could have imagined something so intrusive and useless as the Transportation Security Administration, they surely would have expanded the Fourth Amendment.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures — even whilst traveling between states via air-floating tube-shaped dirigibles — shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized,” it would have surely read.

Over these 28 years the “liberal” party has been even worse. Standing athwart freedom at every turn, this party worships at the feet of an all-powerful, all-seeing and tax-consuming big government that regulates every tiny aspect of people’s lives and snuffs out personal or private enterprise and innovation wherever it can.

All the while, members of the “conservative” party stand by twiddling their thumbs as the formless leviathan grows bigger and bigger.

In some cases — such as the effort to obliterate America’s borders and grant amnesty to millions of lawbreakers — the “conservative” party has actively helped craft and carry out the devilish designs. George W. Bush proudly championed these goals.

This is what happens when you leave professional politicians in charge for too long. They forget who they work for. Eventually, they become slaves to maintaining their own grip on power. They start making dirty little deals. A little graft here, a little lobbying there, wiggle around some district lines, and pretty soon all the vigorous backscratching turns into something else entirely that cannot be described in a family newspaper.

This is what happens when you leave professional politicians in power so long they begin to view themselves as “experts.” An Assembly of Experts.

And after about 28 hugely disappointing years, somebody bigger and smarter than any of them comes walking along and calls them out.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to say this,” real estate developer Donald Trump told Wisconsin voters this week. “I’ve never said this before with all the talking we all do.

“All of these experts — ‘oh, we need an expert’ — the experts are terrible,” Mr. Trump scoffed. “Look at the mess we’re in with all these experts that we have. Look at the mess. Look at the Middle East. If our presidents and our politicians went on vacation for 365 days a year and went to the beach, we’d be in much better shape right now in the Middle East.”

On this, Mr. Trump is exactly right. It is why the Founders did not put an Assembly of Experts in charge. They put people in charge. Even stupid people and uneducated people.

Because stupid people are never nearly as destructive as an Assembly of Experts.

• Charles Hurt can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @charleshurt.

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