Bush warns of too much government

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By Joseph Curl

Former President George W. Bush said Thursday that America must resist the "temptation" to allow the government to take over the private sector, taking a subtle shot at his Democratic successor by warning that too much state intervention and protectionism will squelch the economic recovery.

As the Obama administration has made far-reaching moves into the auto, real estate, health care and financial sectors to fight the economic recession, Mr. Bush, without mentioning the president by name, said, "The role of government is not to create wealth but to create the conditions that allow entrepreneurs and innovators to thrive.

"As the world recovers, we will face a temptation to replace the risk-and-reward model of the private sector with the blunt instruments of government spending and control. History shows that the greater threat to prosperity is not too little government involvement, but too much," said Mr. Bush, who has remained out of the limelight since leaving office and rarely criticizes his successor.

Mr. Bush has addressed private groups since leaving the White House in January, but Thursday's speech, delivered at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, was his first major public policy address since leaving office.

Obama administration officials have defended many of their economic moves as emergency measures to deal with the economy they inherited from Mr. Bush. They note that some of the most intrusive policies -- including the $700 billion Wall Street bailout -- were instituted under Mr. Bush's watch.

At SMU, the future home to the George W. Bush Presidential Center, the former president sought to explain his decision to have the government intervene at the peak of the financial crisis last fall, a decision he called "one of the most difficult of my presidency."

"I went against my free-market instincts and approved a temporary government intervention to unfreeze credit and prevent a global financial catastrophe," he said.

Although many economists credit that early action with halting the economic free fall, Mr. Bush said the only long-term path to prosperity is to free up the private sector and to push for open foreign markets to U.S. goods.

"Trade has been one of the world's most powerful engines of economic growth and one of the most effective ways to lift people out of poverty. Yet a 60-year movement toward trade liberalization is under threat from creeping protectionism and isolationism," Mr. Bush said.

In one of his first major decisions on trade policy, Mr. Obama in September imposed a tariff on tires from China, making good on a campaign promise to the United Steelworkers union to "crack down" on imports that hurt American workers.