The Movement: Is the era of small government over?

Americans who want the government to stay out of companies’ way are increasingly politically homeless. 

Republicans have been the party of small government and big business for decades. But in the last few years, President Trump and the concentric circles of Republicans around him have ushered in a new populist politics that, critics say, has more in common with the same democratic socialists they excoriate than with the party of former President Reagan.

“It is increasingly the case that free-market, conservative-oriented people are a little isolated from both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party,” said Kyle Pomerleau, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s clear why they’re isolated from the Democratic Party. The Republican Party, I think, has been moving in the direction, frankly, of the Democratic Party on economic policy over the last ten years, and that’s driven entirely by Donald Trump.”

There are a few policy moves that put a fine point on this. The executive branch now owns shares in more than 30 companies, mostly in the semiconductors, minerals and quantum computing industries. That’s particularly egregious to libertarians like those at the Cato Institute, who have long been raising the alarm about government ownership. 

“One of the most arguably unprecedented interventions, intrusions in the history of the republic, and there’s not a lot of folks in the traditional free-market, limited-government side that are talking about it or doing anything about it,” said Tad DeHaven, policy analyst at Cato. 

The slide into government ownership started last summer when the federal government bought a 10 percent stake in Intel, the semiconductor giant, to boost the American chip industry against overseas competition. DeHaven and others, including a handful of Republican lawmakers, criticized the move at the time. But Trump has only doubled down since then, and now the executive branch has a significant portfolio of equity stakes. 

After Trump is no longer president, the policies he’s set in place could either be expanded upon by a Democratic president or affirmed by a Republican like Vice President Vance, who subscribes to the Trump brand of economics. 

“For Democrats, especially ones that have always thought this is something the federal government should do, this could be lining up perfectly for them,” DeHaven said. “Because they can spend a year of hearings beating the drum on ‘the executive branch shouldn’t be doing this alone, look at the corruption and cronyism as a result, and therefore the federal government through Congress needs to set up a formal structure and institute guardrails, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,’ and take what the administration has started and turn it into a formal policy going forward.” 

To be sure, there are still plenty in the Republican mainstream who champion free markets and traditional capitalism, especially in Congress. And some have spoken out about their opposition to tariffs and government-owned equity........

© The Hill