Bush: Big Government Checklist

The CATO institute add's up Bush's insane expansion of government. (here)

-Increased federal domestic discretionary spending (even before the bailout) faster than any president since Lyndon Johnson.
-Enacted the largest new entitlement program since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, an unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefit that could add as much as $11.2 trillion to the program’s unfunded liabilities;
-Dramatically increased federal control over local schools while increasing federal education spending by nearly 61 percent;
-Signed a campaign finance bill that greatly restricts freedom of speech, despite saying he believed it was unconstitutional;
-Authorized warrantless wiretapping and given vast new powers to law enforcement;
-Federalized airport security and created a new cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security;
-Added roughly 7,000 pages of new federal regulations, bringing the cost of federal regulations to the economy to more than $1.1 trillion;
-Enacted a $1.5 billion program to promote marriage;
-Proposed a $1.7 billion initiative to develop a hydrogen-powered car;
-Abandoned traditional conservative support for free trade by imposing tariffs and other import restrictions on steel and lumber;
-Expanded President Clinton’s national service program;
-Increased farm subsidies;
-Launched an array of new regulations on corporate governance and accounting; and
-Generally did more to centralize government power in the executive branch than any administration since Richard Nixon.