Republican Party Has Deserted Its Small-Government Roots, Author
Argues in Latest Milken Institute Review
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 10, 2006--Remember when the GOP was
the party of small government? Well, those days are gone, writes an
expert on fiscal management in the latest Milken Institute Review.


Stephen Slivinski, director of budget studies at the Cato Institute,
asserts that the Republican Party -- in charge of both the presidency
and Congress -- has become the party of big spending.

"The one-time party of fiscal prudence has ceded all claims to the
high moral ground on budget matters, overseeing the largest increase
in government spending since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society," he
writes in the new issue of the Institute's quarterly journal of
economic policy.

Also in this issue:

-- Martin Baily, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors in the
Clinton administration, and Diana Farrell, director of the McKinsey
Global Institute, argue that, paradoxically, the only way to preserve
Europe's welfare state from bankruptcy is to allow free markets to
rekindle growth.

-- Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan's Ross School of
Business and Katherine Blauvelt, a graduate student at the University
of Michigan, admire the professionalism of President Bush's panel on
tax reform, but find little reason to believe much will change.

-- Robert Looney, who teaches economics at the Naval Postgraduate
School in Monterey, offers a searing analysis of the oil-rich -- yet
deeply dysfunctional -- Iranian economy.

-- Tomas Philipson, a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, and
Anupam Jena, an M.D./Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago, make
the case that in light of the huge gains in health linked to modern
drugs, we could be better off if drug companies charged more.

-- Donald Leal, a senior fellow at the Property and Environment
Research Center in Montana, maintains that what amounts to
privatization of ocean fisheries can save them from ruin and even save
lives in the process.

-- Peter Frumkin, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin,
says that in philanthropy, as in business, when money is spent is as
important as what it's spent on.

To view articles, visit www.milkeninstitute.org.

About the Institute: The Milken Institute is a nonprofit, independent
economic think tank whose mission is to improve the lives and economic
conditions of diverse populations around the world.