Dan Mitchell: ‘Reckless and Irresponsible- President Trump: Is Making Big Government Even Bigger’

Source:CNN- President Barack Obama vs. President Donald Trump

Source:The New Democrat

“A few months later, I concluded that the answer was no. Trump – like Bush and Nixon – was a big-government Republican.

I wish that I was wrong.

But if you look at the budget deal he approved last year, there’s no alternative explanation. Especially since there was an approach that would have guaranteed a victory for taxpayers.

Now it appears that he is on the verge of meekly surrendering to another big expansion of the federal budget.”

Read the rest of Dan Mitchell's piece

Source:Dan Mitchell: 'Expressing Disdain for Trump's Big-Spending Budget Deal'- Dan Mitchell, talking to Neil Cavuto 

When you read this piece about the Republican Party and how they’ve given up on fiscal conservatism and have said goodbye to it, ( at least until the next Democratic President )  hope you don’t get the impression that I’m leaving the Democratic Party off the hook here for the hook here for the budget deficit that’s now over 1 trillion-dollars again and the 21 or so trillion-dollar national debt, because I’m not. Democrats have never claimed the mantle of fiscal conservatism and fiscal conservatives. And other than the 1990s with New Democrat and Progressive President Bill Clinton, they never even claimed the mantle of fiscal responsibility either. President Jimmy Carter, tried in the late 1970s, but failed to do that.

Pre not just Donald Trump, but George W. Bush as well if there was ever any benefit to having Republicans in government and leading government, it was that they were going to keep your taxes and regulations down, as well as spending. That they saw government’s job was to protect people from predators, foreign and domestic. And that they wouldn’t run high deficits and debt, because they believed in limited government and expected government ( especially the Federal Government ) to do a handful of things and do them well. That to paraphrase Ronald Reagan: it’s the job of government to keep us safe, not to run our lives for us. But even with Ronald Reagan as President, that message and vision for what it means to be a Republican has changed dramatically.

In 1980 to be a Republican it meant someone who believed in the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, limited government, strong national defense, fiscal conservatism, as well as economic freedom, and even personal freedom. That even if Republicans didn’t approve of someone else’s lifestyle choices, they didn’t believe that it was the job of big government to tell people that they can’t live that way, short of not hurting other people with their own lives.

That being a Conservative meant being someone who believed in conserving these American values. Not conserving the Republican Party at any cost, even if that it meant abandoning conservative values like: the U.S. Constitution, limited government, rule of law, tradition, etc.

It’s not just today with this Republican cult like figure named Donald Trump where we’ve seen the Republican Party pretty much ( with few exceptions ) surrender their own traditional Republican values of what it means to be both a Republican and a Conservative.

Ronald Reagan, whatever you think about his politics was never a fiscal conservative, at least not as President. George H.W. Bush was, but he only served one term before losing reelection. George W. Bush, I mean he walks into the White House door with 120 billon-dollar surplus and leaves the White House with a trillion-dollar deficit, so do the math. And of course there’s President Donald Trump, who has never even advertised himself as a Conservative, let alone a fiscal conservative and by the time his first ( and if there’s a God, only one term ) as President, will double President Obama’s 600 billion-dollar deficit.

Today according not to just President Donald Trump, but the Republican Leadership being a Republican and a Conservative seems to mean nothing more than supporting President Trump at all costs: including surrendering what I guess now today in the Republican Party would be little things like morality, character, honesty, decency, truth-telling, the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, limited government, and even fiscal responsibility, just as long as you support President Trump. And that the only time to even try to sound like a fiscal conservative, is when there is a Democratic President.