Hey look the medicare bill was a certainty and this medicare bill has the seeds of privatization, something a Hillary/Ted bill would never have.
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Posted on 12/01/2003 9:06:21 AM PST by jmc813
The Medicare prescription drug bill passed by Congress last week may prove to be a watershed event for political conservatives in America. This latest expansion of the federal government, potentially the largest in our nation’s history, is firmly in keeping with the failed New Deal and Great Society programs of the utopian left. This leaves true conservatives, who believe strongly in limited government and identify with the Goldwater- era Republican party, wondering whether they still have a political home in the modern GOP. In the eyes of many conservatives, today’s GOP simply has abandoned its limited-government heritage to buy votes and gain political power in Washington.
The unfortunate truth is that the Bush administration, aided by a Republican congress, has increased spending more in three years than the previous administration did in eight. Federal spending has grown by more than 25% since President Bush took office. The federal government now spends roughly $21,000 per household every year, up from $16,000 just 4 years ago. Columnist Cal Thomas, in a recent article entitled “The Embarrassing GOP,” raises an excellent question: “How much of that $21,000 could you spend that would produce better results for yourself and your family?”
Consider that Mr. Bush has not vetoed a single bill, nor does he even bother to employ conservative rhetoric. Chris Edwards of the CATO Institute says this about the President: “I’ve never seen him give a speech in which he says government is too big and we need to cut costs.” Furthermore, the outlook for spending restraint during a second Bush term is nil: “When you have a president who has a bunch of his own spending initiatives like education and the Medicare drug bill, it makes it difficult for him to go out and say that Congress is being wasteful,” Mr. Edwards states.
Columnists have coined the phrase “Big-Government Republicans” to describe the current crop of free spenders now controlling the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives. Many of the president’s closest advisors are Big-Government Republicans, former leftists who have no qualms about spending huge amounts of money both at home and abroad to achieve supposedly conservative ends.
The irony is that conservatives suffered through decades of Democratic control of Congress, always believing that liberals were to blame for the relentless growth of the federal government. When Republicans finally took control of Congress in 1994, many saw an opportunity for a real conservative revolution. But first, conservatives were told, the Democratic administration had to be removed. In the meantime, spending continued unabated throughout the 1990s. When Republicans won the White House in 2000, another opportunity seemed at hand. The Senate, however, was still in Democratic hands-- the last possible GOP scapegoat. Finally, in 2002 the GOP took control of the Senate and increased its majority in the U.S. House. Surely this was the moment conservatives had been waiting for! Yet the past year has seen more spending than ever, including the disastrous Medicare bill that will cost trillions over coming decades. The latest line is that the GOP needs a filibuster-proof Senate of 60 Republicans, and then, finally, the party can begin to implement a conservative agenda.
At what point will conservatives stop accepting these excuses? When does the conservative base of the GOP, a base that remains firmly committed to the principle of limited government, finally demand new leadership and a return to conservative values? Will conservatives abandon the party when they realize the GOP, at least under its current leadership, is simply not interested in reducing the size and scope of the federal government? With Republicans controlling the administration and the legislature, and nominally controlling the Supreme Court, the party has run out of other people to blame. One thing is certain: Republicans who support bigger entitlement programs and bigger federal budgets have lost all credibility as advocates for limited government.
What is so bad about criticizing large government if it is enacted by Republicans? Even the most conservative of politicians are wrong sometimes. Would you really prefer that all FR threads were like the "Day in the Life" threads?
Oh I don't know, maybe, because we are pursuing a War on Terrorism.
Look dude, cry all you want, it's an act, for you know that Hillary or Gore would have been 1000 times worse, but you would rather rant and act like some shite flagellating himself bleeding, shouting, "I have been abandoned by Bush".
JMO, it is a tiresome act on FR.
What the public wants is free government money, not fiscal responsibility.
The fiscal conservative argument doesn't appeal to many people in these times, so no practical politician is going to spend much time making the case for it.
Sometimes y'just hafta ruin the country in order to prevent anyone else from ruining it.
Which they would. The only problem with that reasoning is that when Clinton was in office, the Republicans had some backbone and fought against gross over-extension of government programs.
Criticizing is one thing but accusing Bush of "abandoning" conservatives is just flat out false.
I'm 100% behind Bush's foreign policy -- not one complaint. But what do the Farm Bill, the Energy Bill, and a prescription-drug entitlement program have to do with the War on Terrorism?
Are you suggesting Hillary would be better.
Look I know that I don't live in a perfect world, but I also know that Bush is 1000 times better than Hillary.
I just get tired of the contant whining on micro machinations based on someone flagellating themself on principle.
An easy question to ask. Who is better in your opinion? Hillary or GW.
Many on this thread are not "anti-Bush". I personally can name a ton of good things he's done and fully plan to vote for him next year (barring him signing the AWB renewal). However, I feel it is healthy to vigorously protest expansions of government, regardless of who's doing it, and unfortunately, this administration has been doing a heck of a lot of government expanding.
Aren't there important differences between small-l libertarian and "conservative" thinking?
Sounds a bit like Convenient Conservatism to me.
And I must disagree with Paul here - those Republicans committed to limited government are a small and shrinking faction of today's GOP, not the base. Bush knows this, too.
Of course not. I've said countless times on this thread that I'm voting with good concience for Bush next year.
I just get tired of the contant whining on micro machinations based on someone flagellating themself on principle.
I'm sorry, but expanding the government more than Bill friggin' Clinton did is by no means a "micro-machination" IMO.
An easy question to ask. Who is better in your opinion? Hillary or GW.
Bush, of course. But I don't see what Hillary has to do with this article.
The anti-Bushies like to mock those threads. You know, if you don't like them, don't go on them. If you don't like FR, don't post here.
If FR becomes as you fear, then I will get bored and not post. I'm still posting.
And so are you.
Why must you belittle people for having principles. And I'm gonna look up flagellating just to make sure that's what you're doing.
What facets of small-l libertarian philosiphy do you find incompatible with conservatism?
Hey look the medicare bill was a certainty and this medicare bill has the seeds of privatization, something a Hillary/Ted bill would never have.
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Like Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute, and most of them live!"
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