One could argue that Arizona Senator and 1964 Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was the pre-Reagan. He was one of the early champions of today's conservatism, of small government and low taxes. He famously said:
“I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”
That, folks, is as concise and compelling a description of what modern conservatism should be as you're liable to find anywhere.
On Friday, "The American Conservative" author Jack Hunter makes a case that Donald Trump may be finally achieving some of Goldwater's intentions - something not even Ronald Reagan was able to get done.
From Barry Goldwater in 1964, to Ronald Reagan in 1980, through the congressional Republican Revolution of 1994, the Tea Party movement of 2010, and to this day: Most Republicans throughout the modern era have presented their party as the one of fiscal conservatism and smaller government.
During this time, the federal government has grown significantly under presidents and Congresses of both parties, and especially under Republicans.
Reagan, a self-described “libertarian,” was the most explicit small-government conservative to actually be elected president. In the beginning, he accomplished a lot in the way of cutting government size and spending. Some even compare Reagan’s efforts to DOGE. But by the end of his second term, federal spending went up more under Reagan than it would later under President Barack Obama.
It's a fair point. President Reagan wasn't able to achieve this. (Full disclosure: I was a Reagan campaign volunteer in 1980 and 1984, and I handed out many flyers and bumper stickers.) He faced, through most of his two terms, a hostile Congress, and while the hostility then wasn't as virulent and personal as it is now, it still hampered his legislative agenda, and the Democrat-controlled Congress was no more interested in cutting spending than they were interested in setting themselves ablaze.
President Trump, on the other hand, has a (mostly) cooperative Congress, albeit within a narrow margin in both the House and Senate - but mostly, he is willing to swing a big axe at the bureaucracy and has Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency - the DOGE - to unleash to get that done. He's also in his second non-consecutive term, seems to have learned a lot from his first term, and clearly has no you-know-whats left to give.
See Related: NY Times Prints Names, Photos of DOGE Team in Perverse Attempt at 'Journalism'
DOGE Takes a Bite Out of USAID: Support for Terror Groups Revealed in Shocking Testimony
As we all remember, when he re-assumed office, President Trump (still not tired of that) wasted no time setting the DOGE on the trail of wasteful spending. Mr. Hunter, in the article linked above, writes:
In the first month of President Donald Trump’s second term, his Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk has been finding, cutting and canceling wasteful spending and fraud in the federal government at breakneck speed.
On Tuesday, DOGE claimed to have saved $65 billion to date, with the savings coming from a “combination of fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings.”
Ron Paul has been happy about this. On February 7, he wrote glowingly, “DOGE is ripping through the federal government like a tornado. This morning it has been reported that DOGE sent out firing notices to 9,400 USAID employees, leaving only 611.”
“Democratic politicians are furious, of course. But we hope that when it’s all said and done, ALL politicians, Democrat AND Republican, are furious with DOGE,” he added.
“Then we will know that it was a job well done for the American people.”
Many years ago, in my senior year of high school, I was appointed as Opinion Editor of our high school newspaper. I caused a lot of controversy, even then being an opinionated sort; some of my columns led to a few hallway confrontations and even a scuffle or two. Our journalism faculty advisor told me, "If you aren't upsetting people, it means nobody's reading." The same may be said for the DOGE. If they do their jobs right, pretty much everyone's ox will take a gore or two. That's what has to be done, for $36 trillion reasons. Everything, everywhere, has to be on the chopping block. There can be no sacred cows here; even the Department of Defense needs to be examined. To his credit, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is willing to have DOGE take a look at the Pentagon's spending, and anyone who has served can tell you there's some wasteful spending there.
Everything needs looking at. Everything needs to be cut to the bone and maybe a little more. The United States is sagging under a mountain of debt, and we must first stop digging ourselves in deeper. It has come to this.
Mr. Hunter concludes:
“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” Ronald Reagan famously said. No doubt he believed it.
Donald Trump is doing something about it.
He is doing something about it; we are seeing something not even contemplated until Donald Trump Grover Clevelanded himself into his non-consecutive second term. This has been a historic juxtaposition of events: A feckless, incompetent administration that showed no self-control whatsoever where spending was concerned, followed by a president who doesn't have to worry about reelection and is willing to do whatever has to be done to bring the federal Leviathan under some semblance of control. Then, we have to see a plan for addressing the national debt. That is as essential - maybe more so - than dealing with wasteful spending.
It's a fascinating time in American politics.
