The Looming Leviathan?

Ilya Somin is concerned about an Obama victory:

We know from past history that economic crises are a major opportunity for expansion of government power.

Robert Higgs' book Crisis and Leviathan is a good discussion of the basic dynamics. We also know that divided government tends to impede the growth of the state, while united government facilitates it. The combination of united government and a major economic crisis is likely to lead to a great expansion of government, just as it did on several previous occasions such as the 1930s. It only remains to add that Obama - and most of the rest of the Democratic Party - tend to be very pro-government ideologically. As far as I can tell, Obama proposes major expansions of government regulation and spending on almost every big domestic issue, and doesn't propose to retract government in any significant way, except on military intervention in Iraq.

Yes, but even if he were our worst statist nightmare, he couldn't be worse than Bush. And yet the right was so quiet when their man was in office. They have all the less credibility now.