Contrary to popular myth, every Republican president since and including Herbert Hoover has increased the federal government's size, scope, or power--and usually all three. Over the last one hundred years, of the five presidents who presided over the largest domestic spending increases, four were Republicans. Include regulations and foreign policy, as well as budgets approved by a Republican Congress, and a picture begins to emerge of the Republican Party as a reliable engine of government growth.
Herbert Hoover 1929-1933
+ Increased federal spending 38 percent (current dollars)
+ Passed the Agricultural Marketing Act (welfare for farmers)
+ Passed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff
+ Waged war on drugs (alcohol)
+ Passed the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (pork and corporate welfare)
+ Passed massive tax increases
Dwight Eisenhower 1953-1961
+ Increased federal spending 30 percent
+ Created Department of Health, Education, & Welfare (and spending)
+ Put Earl Warren and William Brennan on Supreme Court
+ Helped install Shah Pahlevi in Iran (smart, real smart)
+ Extended Social Security to 10 million additional persons
+ Started American involvement in Vietnam
+ Passed federal highway legislation
+ Created NASA
+ Started student loan program (aka, program to raise college tuition so no one can afford it)
+ Kept federal counterfeiting to a minimum, causing you to lose only 9 cents off your 1952 dollar (Source: The Inflation Calculator)
Richard Nixon 1969-1974
+ Increased federal spending 70 percent
+ Created EPA, OSHA, and CPSC
+ Started "affirmative action"
+ Imposed price and wage controls
+ Made your 1968 dollar worth just 78 cents by the time he left office
+ Proposed minimum national income
Gerald Ford 1974-1977
+ Knocked 8 cents off your dollar in just two years [He didn't WIN (Whip Inflation Now]
+ Increased federal spending throughout term
+ Reduced spending on federal prisons by pardoning Nixon
+ Overall, not too bad for a Republican and better than...
Ronald Reagan 1981-1989
+ Increased federal spending 53 percent
+ Elevated Veteran's Administration
+ Added 250,000 civilian (government) employees
+ Created drug czar's office
+ Escalated war on drugs
+ "Saved" Social Security by increasing payroll tax
+ Lowered the value of your 1980 dollar to 73 cents
George Herbert Walker Bush 1989-1993
+ Increased federal spending 12 percent
+ Signed the (litigious) Americans with Disabilities Act
+ Managed to knock 13 cents off the value of your dollar in just four years
+ Just said "Yes" to new taxes
Republican Congress
+ Held your dollar's loss in value to a mere 11 cents [Newt and the (1995-2000) gang]
+ Increased federal spending and taxes collected
each year
+ Eviscerated ancient right of Englishmen and Americans--habeas corpus
+ Flunked the acid test of economic sanity--raising the minimum wage (mandatory unemployment law)
+ Passed Freedom to Farm Act (at taxpayers' expense, that is)
SOURCE:
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?con ... government