[billbears]

The Republican Party's conservative wing stands to lose the most from this. Some conservatives credit Mr Bush with an ingenious plan to starve the government beast: the huge tax cuts will eventually force huge spending cuts. But this is rather like praising an alcoholic for his ingenious scheme to quit the bottle by drinking himself into bankruptcy

I've heard this argument myself before and the assessment of it is quite true. Meet the 'new' Republican Party, Democrat-lite. Boy howdy, I sure I'm glad there was that big push back in '02 to 'win back the Senate'. The changes between the government before and after are so evident < /sarcasm>

Oh, I suppose we're going to have to wait for the second term for Bush to get up the steam to actually do something conservative huh?

[Torie]

Americans want subsidized drugs. The trick is to do it in a larger context of getting market mechanisms to work better in the medicial industry. Another scandal, ingored by Bush, is that the US is subsidizing drug research for the world. We need to have a most favored nation pricing policy, so that drug companies must sell at prices in the US at the same price they sell to to monopsony buyers in Europe, adjused for the cost savings associated with volume discounts.

Bush was not elected as a movement conservative. There is not a majority constituency for a movement conservative, and probably won't be one absent a crisis situation. You are expected Bush to be something he was not elected to be, and did not run on as intended to be.

For Bush to say screw you to those who want subsidized drugs, we can't afford it, and you don't deserve it, in the context of tax cuts, is a way to lose. Of course, they should be means tested, and the GOP plan does that in a half hearted way. Kennedy hates that, because he wants this to be a way station to single payer universal health care.

If you don't like it, change some minds out there in the public square, and stop complaining at Bush plahing with the deck he was dealt.

[Sabertooth]

I've heard this argument myself before and the assessment of it is quite true.

You've heard some of the following, as well...

Republicans are already bragging that Mr Bush's embrace of Medicare reform is the same as Bill Clinton's embrace of welfare reform back in 1996—a manoeuvre that magically transforms a liability into a strength.

There is, however, one tiny difference. Welfare reform was an admirable policy that led to a sharp reduction in welfare rolls. Medicare reform is lousy policy. The Republicans have given up any pretence of using the new drug benefit as a catalyst for structural reform. They are doing nothing to control costs or to target government spending on people who really need it. They are merely creating a vast new entitlement programme—a programme that will put further strain on the federal budget at just the moment when the baby boomers start to retire.

This might be tolerable if the Medicare boondoggle were an isolated incident. But it is par for the course for this profligate president. Every year Mr Bush has either produced or endorsed some vast new government scheme: first education reform, then the farm bill, now the prescription-drug benefit. And every year he has missed his chance to cut federal pork or veto bloated bills.

When is Bill Clinton a better President than George W. Bush?

When they're stealing issues from the opposition.

[sheltonmac]

Oh, I suppose we're going to have to wait for the second term for Bush to get up the steam to actually do something conservative huh?

That's the consensus around here. Anything the GOP can do that is slightly less than expensive and slightly less socialist than the Dems is deemed a conservative victory. The author phrased it perfectly: "Mr. Bush (i.e., virtually every Republican) seems to have no real problem with big government; it is just big Democratic government he can't take."