Posted on 12/08/2003 8:47:55 AM PST by Reagan Man
President Bush has made it official. By signing into law the new Medicare Prescription Drug Program, the President has given his approval to the largest increase in spending by the federal government since Medicare itself was created and signed into law by the liberal Democrat, President Johnson in 1965. The President has given his okay to raise government expenditures by $400 billion over the next ten years. We all know spending on this Medicare PDP, will not stop at $400 billion. As with all government entitlement programs, the costs to run this new addition to the federal bureaucracy will double or triple over the next ten years.
Bush does win on the politics, but its not a political victory for conservatives or for the GOP in the long term. Medicare is not on the road to privatization.
Throwing money at problems is the way liberal Democrats solved things throughout the 1960`s and 1970`s. That's how the governments entitlement programs grew to over 60% of the current budgetary expenditures. Most traditional conservatives don't oppose assisting the elderly poor, the seriously handicapped or America's military veterans. However, this addition to Medicare, is a boondoggle for government, the drug companies and financially secure seniors.
In the 2000 election campaign, candidate Bush ran on reforming Medicare. His plan called for $158 billion program that assisted the elderly poor, while injecting a much needed modernization phase into the system. What the President signed into law today, was not what he ran on in 2000. President Bush has proven, he is a BIG GOVERNMENT Republican.
The Hertitage Foundation did a solid analysis on the new Mediacre-PDP. You can find it here, Why Medicare Expansion Threatens the Bush Tax Cuts and Undermines Fundamental Tax Reform . Robert Samualson wrote a good piece on the subject. Medicare as Pork Barrel. Here's another good article, Analysts: Medicare Drug Costs Will Rise.
A snippet from the Heritage Foundation analysis.
The Medicare prescription drug proposal is bad health policy, exacerbating the flaws in a system that has almost no market-based incentives to improve service and control costs. But the House and Senate bills also will undermine sound tax and economic policy in several ways. Specifically:
The size of government will expand
A new entitlement will take America even faster down the road that has caused so much economic damage in Europe's welfare states. Indeed, the unfunded Medicare expansion is essentially a huge future tax increase since the population of Medicare recipients will nearly double once the baby-boom generation retires. Ironically, just when some European countries are waking up to the problem and restraining unfunded entitlements, America will be creating an enormous new entitlement.
President Bush's recently enacted tax cut and tax reform package will likely be the first casualty
Because of arcane budget rules, the bulk of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire at the end of 2008 and the end of 2010. Extending these tax cuts or making them permanent will be enormously difficult in an environment of skyrocketing spending for government-provided health care. Indeed, the creation of a prescription drug entitlement may be akin to repealing the Bush tax cuts.
By adding to the deficit, the huge new unfunded liability will likely be the death knell of further tax relief and fundamental tax reform
A prescription drug benefit means bigger deficits--a problem that will intensify as the baby boomers start to retire in the next decade. Once these demographic and fiscal variables become part of the budget forecast, lawmakers seeking to cut taxes and create a simple and fair tax code, such as the flat tax, in all probability will face insurmountable political obstacles.
Inhofe defends Medicare reform bill vote
by Sean Murphy
CHNI Capitol Bureau
Edmond - U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe took aim at environmental activists and defended his recent vote in favor of a landmark Medicare reform bill during a luncheon visit Wednesday in Edmond.
Speaking to a group of about 25 Edmond city officials and community leaders at a local restaurant, Inhofe, R-Tulsa, said that despite overwhelming opposition to the Medicare reform bill, he supported the measure because of the help it will bring to rural hospitals in Oklahoma.
Specifically, he praised a provision in the bill that would increase the cap on Medical payments to Oklahoma's critical-access hospitals, which serve a large number of low-income Medicare and Medicaid patients, from 5.25 percent to 12 percent in 2004.
"These provisions (in the bill) will probably save 40 hospitals in Oklahoma," Inhofe said.
Inhofe said the measure provides a voluntary prescription drug benefit program for Medicare beneficiaries and will expand drug benefits to the nation's poorest citizens.
"This will allow a lot of very poor people to have access to drugs," Inhofe said. "I felt it was a good vote, and I'm not ashamed of it."
And you can give me a stock tip to make a million dollars tomorrow?
Yeah, Yeah, you will say that the tax cuts will be the first casualty. I don't think so, JMO. I think Bush will go into the 2004 campaign to make the tax cuts permanent and call for a permanent end to the death tax.
But have fun doing your best Chicken Little impression.
The pubbies are becoming the junior slave masters in the US.
"Its the Bush reelection campaign, Stupid"
Additionally, I believe Bush will go back to this issue, and get more reform, just as he did with the second round of tax cuts.
My father-in-law is a lifelong democrat and he thinks Bush took what he could get and will be back for round two.
Specifically, he praised a provision in the bill that would increase the cap on Medical payments to Oklahoma's critical-access hospitals, which serve a large number of low-income Medicare and Medicaid patients, from 5.25 percent to 12 percent in 2004.
This just means Inhofe got his pork in up front, rather than waiting to be bribed with it. Bad legislation. Period. But I still generally support the administration.
If limited government is the correct philosophy, why is it the GOP is so afraid of trying it?
BIG GOVERNMENT Republican is synonymous to the new LIBERAL Republican! There is NO difference. When you*re getting porked it doesn*t matter whether a Liberal Democrat is doing it or a Liberal Republican is. The bottom line is still the same, and taxpayers are going to pay.
>>>If limited government is the correct philosophy, why is it the GOP is so afraid of trying it?
I don't know. Conservatism will never triumph over liberalism, if the GOP doesn't stand up and fight these additions to the ever growing size and scope of the federal bureaucracy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.