Originally Posted by
Oberon
For the record I do believe the Republican Party lost its 'ideology' so to speak at some point. The great conservative George W. Bush left almost as many regulations in place by the time he left office as there were when he got elected: the Federal Register had ~83,000 pages when he got elected, and ~80,000 when he left office. In contrast, Trump reduced the size of the Federal Register by at least 25,000 pages between 2016 and 2019.
In addition, at a debate (I believe it was during the Republican Primaries in 2015) between Republican candidates one of them mentioned increasing minimum wage as a campaign policy; I don't remember who (I believe it was Trump, although I may be mistaken) who shut down the proposal, stating that America was not built on minimum wage.
If you look at the Federal Register in general, there's a pattern where during the times when a Democrat was President, the Federal Register increased in size (I believe Harry Truman's presidency is the sole exception). In contrast, look at Ronald Reagan and Trump. They both reduced the size of the Register while in power.
Of course, you still have Republicans like Nixon and Eisenhower (Eisenhower actually continued the New Deal) who actually increased the size of the register.