Do Conservatives Still Believe in Limited Government? The Federal Power Trap
P.A.S. Report | Political Analysis, American Politics & Constitution
Release Date: 08/24/2026
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Do Conservatives Still Believe in Limited Government? The Federal Power Trap
P.A.S. Report | Political Analysis, American Politics & Constitution
Have conservatives abandoned limited government to build their own administrative state? In this episode of The P.A.S. Report Podcast, Professor Nick Giordano challenges Matt Walsh’s argument that every conservative wants to expand federal power. Professor Giordano exposes the federal power trap and shows why control of Washington’s machinery doesn’t defeat the progressive state. It merely preserves that machinery for the next administration. Discover why real conservative power requires Congress to dismantle unnecessary agencies, defund the bureaucracy, repeal open-ended statutory...
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P.A.S. Report | Political Analysis, American Politics & Constitution
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info_outlineHave conservatives abandoned limited government to build their own administrative state? In this episode of The P.A.S. Report Podcast, Professor Nick Giordano challenges Matt Walsh’s argument that every conservative wants to expand federal power.
Professor Giordano exposes the federal power trap and shows why control of Washington’s machinery doesn’t defeat the progressive state. It merely preserves that machinery for the next administration. Discover why real conservative power requires Congress to dismantle unnecessary agencies, defund the bureaucracy, repeal open-ended statutory authority, and restore Tenth Amendment federalism.
What You’ll Learn In This Episode:
- The Power Distinction: Why political power that reduces government control differs from federal power that advances a partisan agenda.
- The Constitutional Stress Test: How a national abortion ban, federal education curricula, Big Tech speech boards, and corporate retaliation test limited-government principles.
- The Bureaucracy Trap: Why conservative agency heads change little when statutory authority, surveillance power, and federal appropriations remain intact.
- The Power-Reversal Test: The essential question every conservative must ask before support for new federal authority: Would you trust Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Gavin Newsom, or Elizabeth Warren with this power?
- The Blueprint for Restoration: What Congress must do to reclaim Article I power, repeal open-ended statutory authority, reduce the federal bureaucracy, and return power to the states and the people.
Episode Chapters
- 00:00 Do Conservatives Still Believe in Limited Government?
- 02:28 Dismantling vs. Controlling the Administrative State
- 09:24 The Three-Part Test for Federal Government Power
- 13:09 Why Conservatives Must Dismantle, Not Manage, Big Government
- 19:48 Federalism, Local Control, and the Tenth Amendment
- 25:43 FISA Surveillance and the Threat to Civil Liberties
- 27:57 A Conservative Agenda for Constitutional Restoration
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