Belt-tightening and austerity have never won a national election, not ever.
It was for that reason that conservatives, starting in 1978, stopped talking about belt-tightening and austerity and started talking about economic freedom and economic growth.

Exuberance is built into the American DNA–living large.

The only way Americans accept paying off debts is by growing out of those debts: A startup company that gets a loan to start its business and eventually pays off the loans out of profits, etc.

And that had been the original Republican message since 1978: We’ll promote policies that lead to strong economic growth, which will increase tax receipts, out of which the national debt can be paid off.

What changed was that the GOP forgot about the growth-promoting part, and started pushing any and all tax cuts as a dogma, rather than as the means to ensuring strong growth. (Not all types of tax cuts will promote investment and growth.)

As you can see,
Medicare Part D was just as integral a promise of the Bush for President campaign, as you claim the public option was of the Obama for President campaign.

Then why didn’t they offer a bill with all of these points? The only non-fictional thing that they supported in their talking points (it wasn’t even close to being a bill) was tort reform. They couldn’t even back the requirement that people with pre-existing conditions be offered affordable health insurance.

sinz54 said… Bush took enough of a risk with Medicare Part D.

And what risk would that be? It was a pander to the older voters, and they never tried to pay for it, not even a little. Risk would have been “I’m doing this, and I’ll a) cut that to pay for it and/or b) raise these taxes to pay for it.” Bush and the GOP did neither. It was a classic piece of politcal pansymanship. That day, the GOP proved they have no spine for deficit reduction.

Real Clear Politics just had a post called The Party of Fiscal Babies that sums the GOP up nicely on this issue. They need to turn to somebody like Bruce Bartlett if they want to understand what being a fiscal conservative means.

> What was the out of wedlock birth rate among minorities before and after Great Society?

The 1964 health care reform is hardly the only reason for rising out-of-wedlock birth rates…
Society has changed and it’s not just “minorities” either. Even Sarah Palin’s daughter is an unmarried teenage mother. Are you going to blame Johnson’s Great Society for that too?
—
ottovbvs is right. It’s great fun to read the hysterical things Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan & co. were saying about America turning into a communist country if the Medicaid and Medicare reforms were approved. Here we are almost fifty years later and today’s Republicans (even Mark Levin!) do not dare to criticize either program. But they still issue the same old “socialized medicine” warnings about ObamaCare, how it will destroy American civilization as we know it etc..

MARCU$

Out of curiosity – which was the more pressing issue at the time. Overall reform of healthcare to try to target affordability, or a prescription drug benefit?

And please don’t compare this to WWII. During WWII we had 16 million people – well over 10% of the US population – serving in the military. The country was necessarily preoccupied with the war effort in a way that kept the other 85+% focussed on making sure those 16 million could do their job.

Right now we have 1.8 million in uniform, if you count reservists (and clearly you might as well, given how they’ve been used in the last 8 years). That’s a little over 1/2 of 1% of the US population.

I would think that the other 99.5% of us could multitask without harming the war effort. And if the war effort is that critical that we can’t multitask, perhaps we need more than 0.5% of the US population involved in it.

Even FDR, as you remember from history, gave up on any further New Deal initiatives once the U.S. entered World War II. (Which caused the left-wing of his party, led by Henry Wallace, to walk out eventually.)

The real question is, why didn’t Gingrich push health care reform when he was House Speaker, and the nation was still at peace. Once HillaryCare got shot down, he had a golden opportunity to introduce GingrichCare. If he had, he might have secured his place in history.

Obama’s promise not to raise the deficit with “reform”.

Obama’s promise not to cut benefits of seniors on MediCare.

The Senate Leader’s promise to be transparent.

The Speaker’s promise not to pass a bill that didn’t contain the Public Option of Govt Control.

Stupak’s promise not to allow abortion funding with govt subsidies.

It’s an incredible example of a lack of political discipline on the part of so many ill-intentioned liars. When the music stops, the liars will still be standing and a few liars will be seated. But the only thing that they share as a value will be crass partisanship and lying.

OK, BS-boi.

Your reply at 15? your “retired” status is linked to not having to work for a living. Who’d have thought you were a loafer on society’s dole? Jeepers, not me.

Can you stick to coloring between the lines, now? Or maybe you’d like to move on in the coloring book to “Obama for Dummies”?