In selling his big‐spending ideas for reviving the U.S. economy, President Obama has chastised “the same policies that, for the last eight years, doubled our national debt, and threw our economy into a tail spin.”
We couldn’t agree more with the president.
Unfortunately, he seems unaware that exploding the size of government, as he is proposing to do with this stimulus package, is a remarkably Bush‐esque ideal.
While Bush was in office, scholars at the Cato Institute were critical of his big government policies. In a new section on cato.org/fiscalreality, you can find some of our research and commentary throughout the Bush years, including:
- “Bush’s Overspending Problem,” by Chris Edwards, The National Post, February 6, 2003
- “The Bush Legacy: Inflation or Deflation?,” by Steve H. Hanke, Globe Asia, September 24, 2008.
- “ ‘Conservative’ Bush Spends More than ‘Liberal’ Presidents Clinton, Carter,” by Tad DeHaven and Veronique de Rugy, cato.org, July 31, 2003.
- “Bush’s Stimulus Flop,” by Alan Reynolds, The Wall Street Journal, January 22, 2008.
- “A Sweeping Rejection of President Bush,” by David Boaz, Cato-@-Liberty, November 5, 2008.