There’s a nice little chart on the web that shows steady government growth from 1940 through 2001 regardless of which party is in power. With this one picture, a thousand words about why there is little difference between the parties become unnecessary. Two quick conclusions can be drawn from the data. The Republican Party has been given sixty post-New Deal years to show that it can shrink or even limit government. It has failed and there is no reason to think it will ever succeed as presently constituted. Second, the conservative movement, which, unlike the libertarian movement, has held center stage in American politics since 1964 and held real power many times, has failed insofar as it purports to believe in smaller or even limited government.

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