David Boaz on the Bush administration

Some people voted for President Bush because he campaigned across this country telling voters, "My opponent trusts government. I trust you." And what did they get?

Spending is up one trillion dollars under the Bush administration. Education has been further federalized in the No Child Left Behind Act. Bush pulled out all the stops to get Republicans in Congress to create the biggest new entitlement program - prescription drug coverage under Medicare - in 40 years.

The Bush administration is pushing secret subpoenas, secret searches, secret arrests, and secret trials. American citizens are being held without access to a lawyer, and without access to an impartial, civilian judge. The Great Writ of habeas corpus is denied.

And perhaps more outrageously, they want to turn our American republic into an empire. We have American troops in 135 countries. They tell us we're going to have troops and military bases in Iraq for as long as we've had them in Korea. Intellectuals with close ties to the administration write articles title "The Case for American Empire."

So, not surprisingly, after 6 or 12 years of this, the voters turned out the Republicans and put the Democrats in charge.

~ David Boaz, executive VP, Cato Institute, "The Coming Century of Liberty," Fall 2007