Rush Calls Bush Like Nixon. Republicans cannot claim to be for small government.

Rush Live broadcast ^ | 11/25/03 | rushy

[Mark Felton]

Rush has spent the last several minutes likening Bush to Nixon. Nixon gave us OSHA and the EPA. Bush is giving us Prescription Medicine benefits for seniors.

Rush says the Republican party cannot claim to be the party of smaller government.

This sounds likme the OLD Rush of 10 years ago!

Go Get Em Rush!

[jla]

You need to realize that there are millions who think they are not, that medical care is a right...

Oh, I'm acutely aware of this.
I just don't regard it as a fait accompli.

[Miss Marple]

Mudboy, I am not making this claim based on political expediency. I am making it based on political REALITY.

Feel free to go out there and argue for shrinking Medicare and seniors assuming more of their own costs (along with their children). See what happens. I am willing to bet you would not be very successful.

Therefore, based on what I think is the reality of the situation, I am willing to try incrementalism, coupled with a carrot to lure the recalcitrant along.

[Fury]

Thanks for posting this...

[VMI70]

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
George Santayana

After reading your dialogue with Southack, I thought this timely and applicable.

[NittanyLion]

It isn't my "conjecture." That's what is written into this Medicare bill.

By your reading of the bill, is privatization a certainty? Or will it be tried in limited markets and adopted on a larger scale only if successful?

Furthermore, in your experience when entitlements are enacted do they never, sometimes, usually or always remain within their original scope? More importantly, are they ever discontinued?

I understand the importance of reading what's in the bill. But one would have to be quite naive to not couple their real world experience in predicting where this is heading.

[carenot]

And Ron Paul wanted to fight osama bin ladin how? Oh that's right with 18th century letters of marquee.

Well, we never got a Declaration of War.

In any case, a letter of Marquee, would have saved a lot of lives, and we might even have Osama Ben Laden now.

[Ann Archy]

I was quite sickened by Rush saying this....it sure will give the libs ammo and the sheeple will think that Bush is crooked....not a big spender.

[carenot]

As I understand it, participation in the prescription drug program is voluntary.

Yes, it is. The money is already fixed.
It don't matter how many want to use it.

[RightWinger]

Rush is correct.

Dubya should never be called a Conservative.
He's always been a moderate and still is.

He may have gained a lot of Democrap votes but he lost mine.

[Southack]

"Furthermore, in your experience when entitlements are enacted do they never, sometimes, usually or always remain within their original scope? More importantly, are they ever discontinued?"

You do realize that Welfare Reform passed all the way back under Clinton, right?

What I'm trying to do is frame this debate about actual substance, rather than around hyperbole and conjecture. What's really in the bill itself? We know how much money is authorized in it, yet people who are against don't want to use those figures. Why not? Why isn't their case made with those actual figures? Does $10 per month per American simply not scare people sufficiently for their purposes?

We also know that there are numerous Privatization angles in the bill. Should any one of those Privatization options perform well-enough to captivate the Public's attention, the push for accelerating the Reform would be intense.

There is also a time limit on both enacting the Reforms as well as on the overall program. After ten years, new legislation would be required to alter the Privatization or fund addition years of subsidies.

Overall, I do not dispute that there are risks involved. This program could become disfigured and somehow grow into unending pork. But that isn't inevitable. It would take *new* legislation to pass for that to happen. It certainly can't happen under the legislation that exists today.

That being said, there is still room to say that this bill costs too much to gain a Privatization option for all of Medicare. Why not simply make that quite legitimate case? Why resort to straw men and hyperbole such as the fanciful "Trillions" in supposed future costs that aren't in the actual bill itself?

The bill costs $39.5 Billion per year for each of ten years. That's about $10 per month per American. If ten Dollars is too much for Privatizing all of Medicare, then just say so.

We're all adults. We can handle the truth.

[Stew Padasso]

The bleeding hearts from both sides of the aisle. Where should I make the checks out to?

[Joe Hadenuf]

$200 billion debt financed war to build a welfare state in Iraq, now free drugs for seniors?

Go Bush.....

[Stew Padasso]

He is a great centrist leader. A little here, a little there, and everyone is happy and pissed at the same time.

Unfortunately, those who foot the bills for his re-election platform keep seeing our wallets get lighter and lighter.

[Stew Padasso]

I guess we shouldn't complain. Gubmint knows what to do with the money and how we should live day to day..

[iconoclast]

A quandary for the Bushbots who are Rushbots.

Hee hee, well put! ;o)

[iconoclast]

Newt? Newt who!?

I think he means the wind-bag, "futurist". The guy who was gonna change the world by raining lap-tops on the hood. ;o)

[iconoclast]

Yes, the Rush-bashing commences...still, can you make the case that Bush's spending spree is NOT Nixonian?!

Maybe five weeks in rehab would do some of these other Bushbots some good! ;o)

[azhenfud]

Okay. But be forewarned: when the budget screams "deficit", a $40 billion/year "program" WILL be borne by SOMEONE, and I have a suspicious clue it'll be valid taxpayers.

[Mudboy Slim]

"I am not making this claim based on political expediency. I am making it based on political REALITY."

Sorry, Miss M, I wasn't tryin' to put words in yer mouth...I am concerned that the lion's share of the privatization aspects of this bill allegedly don't go into effect until 2010. Why wouldn't this start at the same time (2006) as the prescrition drug bennie goes into effect?

FReegards...MUD

[Miss Marple]

I don't know for sure. My guess is that the delay was a deal with the Rats in order to get the bill passed....sort of like how they did the original tax cut bill, putting some of the unpalatable items into outer years in order to get some votes.