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Bush Signs $400 Billion Prescription Drug Program Into Law: Bush Is A BIG GOVERNMENT Republican
December.8,2003
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.
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: healthcare; medicare; prescriptionswindle
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To: NittanyLion
To: Reagan Man
I guess the pubbies think this will sway votes in the next election.
They STILL underestimate their enemies. Pandering is just another word for CHICKEN.
42
posted on
12/08/2003 9:43:22 AM PST
by
unixfox
(Close the borders, problems solved!)
To: Reagan Man
The GOP's attempt to out-liberal the liberals in order to buy the people's love continues. My mother in law (FDR Democrat) is already complaining that the $400 BILLION doesn't go far enough.
43
posted on
12/08/2003 9:45:04 AM PST
by
Blood of Tyrants
(Even if the government took all your earnings, you wouldn’t be, in its eyes, a slave.)
To: FirstPrinciple
which is the tether of this now and later..if we support
Dubya with senate votes this can be permanant or
competition ladened and accelerated.....again if not,it is open to Hillary Care ...Like permanent tax cuts,this action ain't done...imo
To: FirstPrinciple
Why not also provide car insurance, home owners insurance, theft insurance, and every other kind of insurance to the poor as well?
The government already does provide a home owner's insurance of sorts for people that consciously and continiously decide to build in flood plains, tornado alleys, or on the edge of a cliff overlooking the water.
As for comments about how this is going to 'privitize' medicare I just laugh. Did welfare downsize by giving it $400B more in funds?
We're headed to a country where all high tech jobs are done overseas, and everyone in the country is dependant on the government for some sort of assistance. Course FReepers will continue to blame this on Clinton, on FDR, or some other boogeyman than look at their own policies.
45
posted on
12/08/2003 9:45:46 AM PST
by
lelio
To: cars for sale
At what "magic number" will we have enough seats in the House and Senate to suddenly veer hard right? I hear people like yourself lament "If only we had the majority"...then it's "If only we had 60 seats". Will all discussion of politics go out the window once we have 60 seats? Suddenly the GOP will cease to worry about retaining those seats?
We're fooling ourselves to believe that's the case.
To: cars for sale
Did you read the article? Are you looking into an 8 ball that I don't have access to?
To: warchild9
I disagree and think sound bite replies like socialized
medicine versus Hillarys crap is like comparing the
5A Arizona football State Champions to the Green Bay
Packers....I could write 9 paragraphs on the difference but others will most likely
To: JohnGalt
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the concept of cutting taxes while increasing spending. Something tells me a repeal of the tax cuts can't be too far behind.
To: PhiKapMom
"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."
I too, a former Ok resident, a son born at Baptist Hosp., respect Inhofe and thank you for sharing his words.
Really took the wind out of ol swimmer Kennedy. Maybe this is the beginning of his exit ----.
50
posted on
12/08/2003 9:53:44 AM PST
by
malia
(BUSH/CHENEY '04 *A Cherished Constitutional right - the right to vote and have it counted - once.)
To: cars for sale
According to CBO estimates, "HillaryCare" would have cost $1.5 trillion in its first five years. Bush's new prescription drug entitlement is projected to cost $225 billion in its first five. So this new entitlement is about 1/7th size of Hillary's 1993 proposal.
To: cars for sale
Let me keep it simple for all the bots:
There is NO MENTION of government-funded health care in the CONSTITUTION.
There. Refute that.
To: FirstPrinciple
again good freeper, go back to what this bill intended
before it became" get it done" fodder....investment %'s were lessened, the template to try it first was added .
The year of implimintation was extended and I believe
this gets tweeked because it has open doors Hillary can pry on. For that and Dubya's intentions this will right it'self imo
To: NittanyLion
"If limited government is the correct philosophy, why is it the GOP is so afraid of trying it?"I guess we all know the answer: Because "limited government" limits buying voter constituencies with goodies in the next election.
Unfortunately, the GOP feels it has no other option than to slide over to fiscal Socialism to retain power rather than to hold the line.
Question: Is fiscal pandering the only way to stop 40 years of radical social liberalism? May be...
To: NittanyLion
Hopefully, no miracle drug will be invented in the next 5 years that will bust the prescription-drug budget. BTW, I didn't think that Republicans are taking cues from Hillary these days on how to promote healthcare.
To: cars for sale
Honestly, I have no idea what you are talking about. I have given you all these examples where Congress has killed any Medicare competition. And somehow you think this one will work. Sorry, you must be blinded by faith.
To: NittanyLion
Right. The new Medicare PDP, has nothing in common with the BillyBoy's and Hillary Rotten's attempt to have the federal government take over control of 1/7th of the U.S. free market enterprise. (GDP: Gross Domestic Product).
57
posted on
12/08/2003 10:02:16 AM PST
by
Reagan Man
(The few, the proud, the conservatives.)
To: Trust but Verify
I'm not happy with this bill at all, but I'll crawl through broken glass to make sure a Democrat doesn't get elected next year. Some you win, some you lose.
Bush screws over the country's health care system and so-called "conservatives" just shrug it off simply because it was a Republican who signed the bill rather than a Democrat? So much for "working to roll back decades of governmental largesse."
To: sheltonmac
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the 'Progressives' who gave the federalis the power of direct taxation and the power to 'print the difference' in the 19-teens.
Ugh.
59
posted on
12/08/2003 10:03:56 AM PST
by
JohnGalt
(How few were left who had seen the Republic!---Tacitus)
To: NittanyLion
chalk and cheese.........the CBO then was Hillary's like the Justice Dept was Bills. quoting those #'s is insulting
( like the mantra that Bill had 60 % job approval and there was a squandered surpluss)
also you fail to SUBTRACT surgery costs that pre emptive
(hehe) medicines of today save.
Lastly ,good god man, did you forget those charts
of command and penalty from HillaryCare?
to imply this is that clap trap is that, is not only unfair
it like comparing chalk and cheese...imo
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