Goodbye Big Government, Hello New Federalism

It has been said that Ronald Reagan was the first and the last modern conservative President of the United States. As a conservative President, he introduced one of the most important domestic policies: the introduction of New Federalism. New Federalism referred to the transfer of certain powers from the federal government to the state government. The primary focus was to restore the states power and to end the era of big government.

And for a time Reagan's New Federalism worked. However, over the last twenty years we have once again returned to that big-government mentality and seem to have lost site of the Tenth Amendment. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people."

Currently, we are standing in the middle of a country in undeniable crisis - much of which we have brought upon ourselves. We are unable to put our trust in our nation's leaders as they seem to let us down, and yet we are not able to take care of ourselves because we don't know where to begin. We want a safer world, but we also want to see an end to the war. We want to continue to decrease our nation's deficit, and yet we continue to spend. We want to see the world change, and yet we sit back and wait for someone else to move first. We want to be conservative in a world where "quantum leaps in technology have transformed how we communicate with one another and expanded everyone's access to an endless array of life possibilities. Jobs last months rather than decades. Travel is cheaper and easier than ever before. Mass immigration has altered settled cultures across the globe. Freer trade has upended life's certainties and customs in almost every society on earth. Assumptions we once made about who we are as a people, or as a country, or even as men and women, are now open to debate. The meanings of family, of marriage, of health, of sex, of faith are now things we cannot simply take for granted as a shared understanding" (Andrew Sullivan, The Conservative Soul). Certainly this is not the same America that our founding fathers once dreamed about, and it is a long way from the conservative, small-government ideas of President Reagan.

According to research done by The Heritage Foundation, "Federal spending jumped by 7.4 percent, climbing from $2.47 trillion in Fiscal Year 2005 to $2.65 trillion in Fiscal Year 2006. This $182 billion increase was about two times faster than needed to keep pace with inflation. Entitlement programs alone grew by almost $100 billion. Federal government outlays now consume about 20.3 percent of GDP." According to a study done by The Cato Institute, "There are 1,696 subsidy programs in the federal budget, which dispense hundreds of billions of dollars annually to state governments, businesses, nonprofit groups, and individuals. The number of subsidy programs is rising rapidly, with a 44 percent increase since 1990," and "a net 271 new programs have been added since 2000, the largest increase in programs since the 1960s." There is no question that many of these federal programs are wonderful and that they are money well spent. However, the numbers don't lie. And the numbers are big!

It's true, our federal government is big, and it is spending money as if there is no tomorrow. The federal government has added 271 programs in the last six years many of which are viewed by many Americans as unnecessary and even potentially invasive. We currently have Republicans and Democrats fighting over personal and private matters as well as matters of public policy. There are also many life-long Republicans and life-long Democrats realizing that things have to change if we want to bring this nation back to what our founding fathers intended it to be--a government "for the people, by the people, and of the people," not a government run by a few noisy politicians.

Currently, neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party seems to offer much hope as a whole. We as Americans need to open up our eyes and start realizing that the current two-party system is not working. Pat Buchanan put it best when he described the Republicans and Democrats as "two wings of the same bird of prey." It seems that while one is busy supporting Big Business the other is occupying itself with Big Labor. The one thing they have in common is that they both support Big Government and both have lost sight of the Constitution and our nation's conservative values.

We are the people that this country, this nation, this government was created for, and we are not doing our part. I urge you, as we begin looking forward to this next presidential race, to look at the person running for office and not just look at the party label. It is time that we stand up for our values and start supporting genuine conservative constitutionalists, party politics aside. There are many great conservatives running for elected offices throughout the country. Some are members of Constitution Party, some are members of the Green Party, some are Libertarians, some are Republicans, and some are Democrats. Now is the time for our nation's Christian leaders to stand up and begin supporting these independent candidates. For once that happens, it certainly will not take long for us to start seeing some changes around here.

Written for the KC Conservative - April 2007