Buckley's Program
by Donald Devine
Issue 103 - March 12, 2008

William F. Buckley Jr. was the single person most responsible for creating the conservative movement. The modern conservative synthesis was formed under his tutelage during the 1950s and 1960s at the editorial meetings of the magazine he founded, National Review, crafted with a diverse and thoughtful crew that included Frank Meyer, Russell Kirk, Whittaker Chambers, James Burnham and many other creative intellectuals. But Buckley was the center.

His book “Up From Liberalism” was one of his earliest and survived to be the most comprehensive and inspiring statement of his program.

I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power, as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth. That is a program of sorts, is it not? It is certainly program enough to keep conservatives busy and liberals at bay. And the nation free.

Bill Buckley’s dual attachment to freedom and traditional moral values—he said the critical battle between individualism and collectivism was merely a “struggle on a different level” of the more fundamental one between Judeo-Christianity and atheism—this was the formula that won the hearts of the movement that developed around his towering personality. His call for the revival of individualism and moral responsibility in the face of the dominant and repressive welfare state bureaucratic paternalism of the modern age was the spark that ignited all that followed.

The enemy of freedom was state power and its bureaucracy, especially when it was corrupted by real evil such as under communism and Nazism. Even in the more benign form of democratic welfare statism it was morally corrupting and produced dependence. As the great 19th Century observer Alexis de Tocqueville predicted long before, once the populace obtains “free” benefits from government, it becomes dependent on them. As Buckley put it, “There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self reliance.”

So how has the Buckley program to expand liberty and reduce bureaucracy worked? For many years his conservatism grew quietly in the wilderness but it did finally come to power under Ronald Reagan. The program was successful--for a while. By the end of his term, President Reagan had reduced non-defense federal employment by 75,000 full time equivalent positions (about 100,000 employees). The bad news is that the federal bureaucracy has been increasing ever since. The end of the Cold War did allow the reduction of 330,000 defense civilian employees but non-defense bureaucracy—that which fuels welfare state dependence--increased by 13.6 percent or 145,000 from the time the Gipper left until the current estimate for the last of the Bush years.

The program has retrogressed so far that President George W. Bush could famously demand that “when someone hurts, government must act.” Unfortunately, when government acts, it needs bureaucrats and bureaucracy. Consequently, President Bush has increased domestic government employment more than any other post World War II president, although all of the others have tried. His final (and labeled his most frugal) budget for 2009 seeks an increase of 26,000 additional federal employees. It is true that it is predominantly for homeland security but increases have been across the board, over time in every department except Treasury.

So, has the Buckley program failed? That is not so clear. Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans prefers a smaller government that does fewer things to a larger one that does more. Americans once really believed “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Today, partially under the critique from Buckley’s movement, this is a national joke. Most people just do not think big, national government works. They are correct. Since 9/11, as noted, the Department of Homeland Security has been lavished with the most funds and personnel. But the additional employees just cannot seem to make the new bureaucracy work. The official Government Accountability Office audits find that DHS met only half of the performance objectives set by the president, the Department and Congress, only on 78 of 171 tasks. Even moderate progress was made on only eight of fourteen major benchmarks.

More important, it is now clear that DHS procedures actually exacerbated the number one challenge it met, the Katrina hurricane. Before 9/11, Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief overwhelmingly relied on volunteers and local government for funds, leadership and personnel. But when it was incorporated into DHS, FEMA not unnaturally adopted the security orientation of its parent. When the hurricane hit, the prime directive of security is always to “secure the area.” As a result, the main potential emergency assistance was kept away from the scene. The president’s own brother sent a flotilla of boats with medicine and supplies that were kept out because they did not have the proper security clearance. Another was sent from Shreveport and turned away. The same fate was met by thousands of other potential helpers.

It is going to get worse. DHS is preparing a more secure control system that will not allow rescue workers to “swarm”—as a “professional disaster relief expert” put it to a reporter--into disaster areas without a federally-issued secure identification tag proving their disaster expertise. Government officials admit most assistance is provided by volunteers but they claim they are without the “special skills” that are required and will be recorded on the IDs. Perhaps, but what is certain is that no one without a badge will be admitted to the next disaster to help. It will be Katrina squared. Even more, what happens if the scanners do not arrive or break down? When people hurt, no one will be able to help anyone.

All of the federal programs are breaking down. The three biggest, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are nearing bankruptcy and the new prescription drug benefit just moved up the end. Education spending has increased 99 percent without any discernable improvement. Each year tests of the transportation security system show that it is easily breached at airports and ports. The agriculture support program is mostly spent on mega-farmers who do not need it. Veterans get lost in the gap between military and civilian health and benefits coverage and often receive inferior care. After a great investment in border security, illegal drugs and laborers still slip through with impunity.

So citizens are correct to question whether government officials can really help. But as Buckley recognized, the greater problem is the dependency the programs produce even if they did work. Not only is great wealth squandered on inefficient or even counterproductive programs that could be used effectively elsewhere but people come to believe at the insistence of the politicians and bureaucrats that only more federal “help” will solve the problems that the Feds themselves have often created--so the rot seeps throughout society to the remotest hamlet.

A California school district recently banned tag, cops-and-robbers, touch football and all other “bodily contact” between children to promote “self esteem” and outlaw “violence;” but actually it outlaws independence and creativity. The Cincinnati Little League has banned chatter on the baseball diamond to prevent “frustration” among the players. A Colorado Springs elementary school eliminated tag, although allowed running as long as no one was chased! At Mascoutah middle school in Illinois, a 13 year old was given detention for hugging her friends before the weekend, violating the school policy against “public displays of affection.” The result of this bureaucratic nonsense, of course, is flabby children. But the bureaucracy has an answer. Call it “obesity,” label it as another national crisis and create another government program (with more employees) to combat the “crisis” they themselves created.

The dependence Buckley feared has become so profound there is not enough will even to have children and create the next generation. With its welfare state more developed, Europe is leading the way. While it takes 2.1 children per childbearing aged woman, Europe is down to 1.3 and the birthplace of the West will soon be depopulated (or become Muslim). The U.S. is doing better but European-Americans are below replacement at 1.8 and, according to a new major study, 80 percent of future population growth will come from immigrants or their children, primarily Hispanic.

While Bill Buckley’s program has not succeeded, his analysis remains even more relevant than when he first wrote because people are more dependent. It is too late to turn to Mr. Buckley, however. He is now gone to his God, obedient to the end, still subservient to the wisdom of his ancestors. He was, in fact, the most generous person I have ever known. But he cannot help us any longer.

It is now up to us to continue his struggle up from liberalism. When the moral and fiscal bankruptcy of the welfare state finally cannot be ignored any longer, people will seek another answer and someone must be there to propose the Buckley program. As he reminded us, no matter how fundamental the challenge, “despair is inappropriate for a culture as buoyant as our own.”

Donald Devine, the editor of Conservative Battleline Online, was the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from 1981 to 1985 and is the director of the Federalist Leadership Center at Bellevue University.