Compare Republican and Democratic administrations over the four decades since Eisenhower's first term. Both parties have routinely increased spending, raised taxes, and promulgated more regulations. For those of us who love and venerate liberty. Yet my memory of the inevitable gap between that rhetoric and the Republican reality leaves me gloomy and grumpy. Since World War II, the Republicans have done little to disprove James Madison's thesis about special interests working their will in democracies.
Hope springs eternal, but experience counsels skepticism.
Today, there are over 40,000, or approximately 400 lobbyists per Senator. Back in the 1920s, when Republicans last firmly controlled both Congress and the White House, civilian federal, state, and local employees made up less than 3 percent of the work force. Now government employees, at a historic peak of 18.8 million, are just below 15 percent of the labor force. And they have been joined by several armies of clients. And just over 16 percent of the population receives Social Security, a direct transfer from wage earners, although its beneficiaries often don't realize it. . .