Government of, by and for the governors

George Bush entered the White House as a bleeding-heart conservative bent on making conservatism synonymous with compassion. Eight years later, he is about to leave the White House, having made conservatism synonymous with big-government liberalism.

He blundered into a turf war in Iraq against hit-and-run proxy armies that had not attacked the United States and cared little about turf. Unable to defeat those armies militarily, he persuaded the tribal leaders who commanded them to switch sides, putting them on the American payroll.

If they ask for a raise, and don't get one, what will happen in Iraq is anybody's guess. Religeous disputes growing out of events in the 7th Century still animate Iraq's politics.

Having failed to persuade most Americans that the war in Iraq was justified, Bush has recently offered a new explanation: he wanted to liberate the 50 million people of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The American attack against Afghanistan is easily justified, but historians will search in vain for previous examples of wars waged by America for the singular purpose of liberating a foreign population from a heinous dictator.

The Kennedy administration's botched attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba might serve as a cautionary reference.

Yes, Bush did campaign successfully for tax cuts that produced a robust economy. But the new jobs attracted a horde of new illegal immigrants from Mexico. Bush dragged his feet on sealing the border, allowing the illegals to take low-paying jobs that would have been filled by struggling American workers if the Bush administration had simply enforced existing laws. The surplus workers drove down wage rates at the bottom of the scale.

Again, Bush relied on "compassion" to explain his hands-off demeanor. The new immigrants, he said, were just "coming here to work." Grieving parents of children raped and murdered by illegals may view the matter more critically. Taxpayers who are supporting thousands of illegals in California and Texas prisons might also dissent.

Hurricane Katrina also aroused Bush's compassion. The Department of Homeland Security, the bloated behemoth that he set up in response to the 9/11 attacks, bought hundreds of mobile homes for the use of people displaced by the storm. Most were never used. Instead of disposing of the units, the department parked them on lots, where they deteriorated and lost whatever value they had once had.

On Bush's watch, the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to intervene as the mortgage industry morphed into a transnational behemoth that bundled ma and pa mortgages into big-ticket securities that were traded world-wide, attracting capital and inflating home prices, creating the bubble that burst last year.

As a result, Americans are now struggling with a government-made recession as well as even-more-ominous government remedies.

In his final big role as president, Bush has served as the setup man for President-elect Barack Obama, pushing bailouts and stimulus spending that may cost taxpayers trillions of dollars. By pursuing this liberal agenda, Bush has inoculated Obama against criticism for even more lavish stimulus ventures in the future.

Big government is here. Elephantine government is on the way.

The result is predictable. Down the road, inflation will rage and government will slam on the brakes, raising interest rates and throwing workers out of jobs, sending the economy into another tailspin.

There is a word for politicians, or anybody else, who do the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. Albert Einstein was fascinated by the phenomenon. His word for it was "insanity."

Isn't it strange that the only nation designed to function through markets, both political and economic, now is unwilling to even experiment with market remedies for government-created disasters.

Tax cuts would directly inject money into the marketplace, bringing about some degree of recovery. So why aren't tax cuts being considered? Because tax cuts leave spending decisions in the hands of rank and file Americans, as the framers intended.

To the framers, markets were mechanisms that Americans would use to signal what kinds of food, clothing, shelter and entertainment they preferred and how they wanted government to behave. Those signals would guide the economy and government policies.

Unlike tax cuts, stimulus spending puts the money in the hands of politicians, who will direct the spending into ventures that burnish their resumes and grease the wheels for future campaign contributions. Reelection, not sensible government, is what animates Washington politicians.

The last refuge of Bush's defenders is the judgment that he "has kept us safe" by aggressively pursuing Muslim terrorists.

Perhaps. But wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the wall erected by President Clinton's Justice Department between intelligence gathering and law enforcement enabled the 9/11 attacks?

The 9/11 plotters may well have been caught before the event but for government blundering that kept intelligence from informing law enforcement that individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism were on American soil.

Since 9/11, and removal of the wall, local and state law enforcers have done a commendable job of discovering and disrupting a variety of follow-up conspiracies.

Now that the Republican and Democrat parties have become part of the same self-serving, big-government cabal, what is to be done?

Make a list of conservative grass-roots, internet-based, organizations that move quickly and decisively. Numbers USA, for instance, was vital in organizing dissenters and blocking John McCain's misguided amnesty-for-illegal-aliens bill in 2007, and probably will be called into the fray again. There are many others.

It's time to recognize that conservatives no longer have a political party. George Bush and his allies have destroyed it. The government is now a hazard to the health and welfare of the governed.