Sorry bud, facts and reality matter - The reality is federal spending today as a % of the economy is lower then the past 30 year average! - Furthermore non-security related discretionary spending has been cut for 5 years straight! (that doesn't mean the Gov't doesn't spend too much on all levels...federal, State and local...but the reality is, it isn't what you are suggesting in relation to GWB).
No Child Left Behind was nothing more then the reality of the demographics of this Country and what the public was demanding (accountability of the public education system).
Medicare Drug Bill? I don't particularly like it (however GWB is pushing for overhauls in private medical accounts which will pay off in the long run) - But if the criteria is 100% approval of all policy decisions while in office... in order to be a true Conservative...then we have had NONE in our history.
Ouch, I sprained my eyeballs just reading that. What tiny percentage of the budget are you talking about?
There is no constitutional basis for any federal intrusion into the area of education. That clearly was a matter intended to be left to the several states. The concept that the Federal Gov. would ever have the power to confiscate taxes from our livelihoods and personal labors and blackmail our states with that money was not contemplated by the founders and if it had been would have been expressly rejected. Having some experience with this Kennedy education bill, my opinion is not only does it violate the constitution regarding limitations on federal powers, it is a crock that has severely burdened the costs of the educations systems of the states and is in fact not accomplishing squat in terms of substantial increases in scholastic abilities of the vast majority of our children. Big debates here but if Bush's legacy is going to be measured by this "accomplishment" the verdict is not yet in and clearly no claim of victory is close to being justified.
But if the criteria is 100% approval of all policy decisions while in office... in order to be a true Conservative...then we have had NONE in our history.
Not the right criteria. Even a broken clock is right twice a day (broken sundial may never be right so I guess he does not belong in that camp but I had to think about it...just kidding but barely)..It is clear on illegal immigration, Bush has steadfastly refused to enforce the law much less try to reverse the ever increasing flow of Mexicans illegally infiltrating our country. He has been on the amnesty kick the whole time the border has been being overrun.The real question is why, I have my own suspicions but we should really examine why he has not been as effective as Clintoon (ugh) "was-was" at this. Maybe we should follow the money?
The U.S. Comptroller General, David Walker,...W's own man...disagrees with your complacency. He is in fact, in a state of sheer panic. He predicts we face a "Demographic Tsunami"...which our hapless spending has only made worse.
WASHINGTON — The comptroller general of the United States is explaining how the nation's finances are going to hell."We face a demographic tsunami" that "will never recede," David Walker tells a group of reporters. He runs through a long list of fiscal challenges, led by the imminent retirement of the baby boomers, whose promised Medicare and Social Security benefits will swamp the federal budget in coming decades.
The conversation remains somber for most of an hour. Then one reporter smiles and asks, "Aren't you depressed in the morning?"
Sadly, it's no laughing matter. To hear Walker, the nation's top auditor, tell it, the United States can be likened to Rome before the fall of the empire. Its financial condition is "worse than advertised," he says. It has a "broken business model." It faces deficits in its budget, its balance of payments, its savings — and its leadership.
Walker's not the only one saying it. As Congress and the White House struggle to trim up to $50 billion from the federal budget over five years — just 3% of the $1.6 trillion in deficits projected for that period — budget experts say the nation soon could face its worst fiscal crisis since at least 1983, when Social Security bordered on bankruptcy.