[Mulder]

I don't see how anyone who paid attention could have thought Bush was nearly the most conservative candidate running.

I never claimed he was. He did posture himself as a conservative, however.

For starters, his ideas of increasing federal involvement in education were a bit tip-off.

We were told that would be the "price" for getting vouchers through Congress. Well, now we have a 27% increase in the Federal Education budget, and no vouchers.

Have you seen the polls that say the majority of Americans think the government should be involved in a prescription drug program?

The government is already involved in the prescription drug industry. They tax the drug companies at a confiscatory rate. They place onerous and restrictive burdens on them when they attempt to bring a new drug into the marketplace. They create so much red tape, that the cost of prescription drugs is 2-3X what it would be in a truly Free market.

The government created the problem, and they hold themselves up as the solution.

Reagan would have told us that, and stated flat out that the "government is the problem not the solution".

Bush will likely team up with his buddy, Ted Kennedy, once again, and have us taxpayers pay for a new expanisonist and unconstitutional federal program.

[Torie]

I don't think you are an expert on the presciption drug industry. Some things are broke, such as the fact that the US perscription drug consumers basically pay for drug research that benefits the world, while Western Europe and Canada are free riders, but that was not what your post addressed. It had that unfortunate populist tone that well, does not comport with the facts, that gets my hair standing on end more than most statements of an ideological nature do. Maybe because I am so certain, to a moral certainty, that it so absolutely wrong! Cheers.