did that cause the massive increase in the size of government(bodies, that is,)the poster spoke of??
All entitlements become a huge component of the government.
Medicare, as originally enacted, was supposed to be no more than tens of billions/year by the year 2000.
Security/defense spending is discretionary, and can be reduced at any time.
Entitlements just go up, up, up - entitlements are the single largest component of government spending today - and they cannot be reduced easily, if at all.
For any true conservative, Medicare Part D was the end of any claim by the Bush administration that they were “conservative.”
As to the poster’s claim: Most of the “security” spending in the Bush budget is a complete boondoggle while delivering no security. It is nothing more than pork-barrel spending under the rubric of “security.”