Bruce Bartlett's fellow Republicans scare him. He pushes back against the dominance of Hooverism in the Republican Party:

To Opponents Of The Stimulus: Over the past year, we have heard much criticism of the stimulus and Keynesian economics from conservatives, but we have heard precious little about what should have been done instead once it was clear that a very serious recession was underway. This implies that conservatives think the government should have done nothing and allowed the economy to crash or recover on its own. This is in fact the explicit view of those associated with the right-wing Austrian school of economics, which includes Congressman Ron Paul, R-Texas.

If the economy should have been forced to recover on its own without any help from government, then this suggests that the cause of the crisis had nothing to do with government policy; it's all the private sector's fault. As economist William Poole of the libertarian Cato Institute said last November, "I hold the market responsible for the financial crisis."

In this view, private businesses, investors and workers made mistakes and must pay for them. If they are rescued through bailouts, unemployment compensation and stimulus programs, it will reduce the punishment for those mistakes, which will lead them to make the same ones again in the future. Inflicting maximum pain on the private sector, therefore, is just tough love.

If the recession is primarily the result of private-sector mistakes, then perhaps one could justify the conservative do-nothing policy. There are two problems, however. First, many of those suffering from the recession clearly did nothing wrong; they're innocent bystanders--workers who have lost jobs through no fault of their own, investors who have suffered huge wealth losses due to the misfeasance or malfeasance of corporate executives, and well-run businesses that were forced into bankruptcy solely because of the recession.

Basic fairness and compassion demand that something be done to aid those who suffer collateral damage from economic crises. And in a democracy it is inevitable that government will respond to their cries for help. Rather than say that people should just suck it up, I think it would be better for conservatives to support temporary programs to help people cope. By refusing to do so, they make it easier for liberals to use a crisis as an excuse to enlarge government with permanent programs that probably couldn't be enacted except during a crisis.