Scott Tibbs
Republicans, Trumpism and limited government
By Scott Tibbs, September 7, 2022
A couple months ago, Donald Trump proposed a policy solution for the homeless problem in our cities. Much of the discourse around the plan was the details of the plan itself and whether Trump's solution would be effective or not, but there is a much more basic problem that virtually no one addressed: This is not something the federal government has the constitutional authority to address.
There is no question that homelessness has had a significant impact on our cities, in terms of sanitation, economic activity and public safety. But Republicans should not look at the federal government to deal with these problems. Homelessness is properly addressed by the state and local authorities. We have a federalist system where the role and power of the national government is supposed to be limited, and it is not good when even Republicans look to the federal government to solve a problem.
This is not the only issue with Trump, who presided over a drastic increase in federal spending and even criticized Democrats for
not spending enough on COVID-19 stimulus during his last month in office. Now, Republicans are criticizing Biden for his spending and trying to block more spending increases. One could be forgiven for thinking this is just partisan politics and not principle - especially if you actually want to see spending significantly reduced.
The Republican Party needs to rediscover a commitment to limited government and especially to federalism. That commitment was at least promised in 1994 and 2010, but the influence of President Trump has deeply undermined that principle. Trump has never been a committed fiscal conservative and certainly has never embraced Tenth Amendment solutions to local and state problems. Trump often has the same basic federal-first orientation as Democrats, and Republicans need to be something better than Democrat Lite.
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