Big Government Conservatism Update

Jon Rauch has another great column detailing again how statist George W. Bush has been in the White House. The picture, however, is a little more complicated than the crude indicators above:

According to the Mercatus-Weidenbaum report, the bulk of the increase in regulatory spending and staffing is for homeland security: such functions as airport screening (the creation of the Transportation Security Administration alone accounts for 80 percent of the staffing increase under Bush, though only 29 percent of the spending increase), maritime and border enforcement, new air-cargo rules, and so on. Subtract homeland security, and Bush turns out to be as tight a regulator as Reagan was, with annual growth of regulatory spending and staffing at rates of 2.6 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively, through 2006. Prepare, then, for a shock of recognition: On regulation, as on everything else, the Bush administration's war on terrorism is driving an expansion of government.

Are we getting our money's worth from Bush's security-driven burst of regulation? The answer, unfortunately, is that no one knows.