Bush Patronage Spigot Gushes

Story in Reason this week -- I swear I don't know how we got on their list -- sez ". . . President Bush. . . appears to be the biggest regulator since the Nixon-Ford years." A recent study by Jerry Brito and Melinda Warren says Bush pushed more pages of regs, hired more regulatory staff, and spent more money on regs than any president since Nixon/Ford. Surprised?

It will astonish you to hear that the Bushies also refused to justify the costs (to their own chief economist) before incurring a 300% hike in homeland "security" (I use the term loosely).

Policy discussions of homeland-security issues are driven not by rigorous analysis but by fear, perceptions of past mistakes, pork-barrel politics, and insistence on an invulnerability that cannot possibly be achieved.

Like I said, homeland security is a patronage spigot, that's all.

There. Relax and sleep tight.