How Bush and Republicans Will Destroy the Party.

[maxparrish]

I wish I could deliver some good news, but let's be realistic. In the next two years George Bush and the Republican establishment will likely incinerate the remaining conservatism and power of the Republican party. Not that their scorched earth policy will be intentional, but it will happen.

George is not a politically bright fellow - he just wants to get along. He will call in his daddy's caretakers (Brent Skowcroft, et. al.) to administer the smoking ruins, salting the earth for future generations.

For example, George has already informed Calderon that a new pro-Mexican immigration policy will sail through Congress. The fences will not be fully funded, vast (millions) of new quotas will be provided for Mexican guest workers, citizenship will be granted for up to 20,000,000 law breakers, and amnesty for taxes will be granted. George will provide full social services and welfare for illegals, and support public expenditures for future 10s of millions. Mexicans, over other immigrants, will be given the highest quotas over any other individual of humanitarian need, useful skills,willingness to use English, individual family circumstance, or heritage. Jumping the line will be expected.

As a result, much of the party will revolt and form a third party or stay home, insuring the defeat of the GOP in 2008 by massive margins. Mexican immigrants (legal and illegal) will continue to align with the Democratic party, now pouring into the country at a rate of 2-4 million a year "with citizenship".

In 10 years the GOP will be irrelevant, and the United States will be much like Mexico and the decades of PRI rule - a one party state. George Bush and Chamber of Commerce Republicans will be moaning and crying over the new socialist culture, they will bemoan the lack of workers that understand English, they will cry about the TWO (or more) national languages mandated by law, and be disgusted by the taxes - they will make their own hell. In the meantime, a large number of Democrats and Mexicans will demand unity with Mexico.

Gee, sounds wonderful.

[TSawyer2112]

I've been down about tuesday's election, but your post made me feel so much....................................more down.
I hope you don't do crisis counseling for a living:sad:

[BarkleUSA]

RE:

...they will cry about the TWO (or more) national languages mandated by law,

Bush already speaks Spanish (probably better then he speaks English).

The good news is that there are just 95 million Mexicans left in Mexico - eventualy they will run out of people to come here - then we conservatives can go down there, finally build that fence and raise the flag over New America.

In 10 years New America's economy will be the envy of the world, the old America will be a crumbling currupt 3rd world socialist secular progressive atheist cesspool and they will be trying to come south to escape the malaise.

Oh well, just a thought...

[DeclinetoState]

I hope you don't do crisis counseling for a living:sad:Max's comment on Murphy's Law is that Murphy was an optimist!

[TSawyer2112]

Max's comment on Murphy's Law is that Murphy was an optimist! Murphy? Isn't that the same guy who thought the light at the end of the tunnel was the headlamp of an oncoming train?

[Jester21]

maxparrish, i think you're being too pessimistic. I don't think the party will be destroyed. I think Bush was the biggest liability the Republicans had, now they can begin to move away from him and start acting sensibly.

Besides, in 2 years they can take over again. It's not like the Democrats have a lock on the Senate; their 'majority' also includes 2 independents. House might be a little harder but it's not impossible.

[DesertFox]

Bush done fine except for his spending and his nonstance on illegals -- admittedly, two pretty big exceptions. The alternative -- JFK -- would not have done fine on anything and we'da had to put up with his stupid spoiled ugly whore of a wife.

[Maggie_T]

Will destroy the party? Some people say they already have. :(

[Naturalized-Texan]

As I wrote in other threads, John McCain is by far the single individual most responsible for the Democrat takeover of both houses of Congress.

[True American]

I've been down about tuesday's election, but your post made me feel so much....................................more down.
I hope you don't do crisis counseling for a living:sad:


http://www.freeconservatives.com/vb/images/icons/rolling0.gif roflmao

I wouldn't feel so down about all this folks. It isn't the end of the world, or the party or the country. It's simply time to get back to the drawing board.

Might be a good time for more of us to register as Independents. Then this two party system we have in place wouldn't be counting on a certain number of automatic votes. More Independent people registering will show "ALL" the parties it's time to really get their acts together.

I am now back in Boston, which means I will have to re-register to vote. I'm going Independent. Conservative as I am, I don't want anyone taking my vote for granted. I can't see that I'll ever vote for a Democrat, but who knows; maybe an Independent candidate could meet my criteria. I highly suggest we all attempt this for the good of our country. Of course, it's just a suggestion, but one that may possibly work.

As for the fence on our border...
Like Kinky Friedman said, we might regret that. We may need access ourselves in 10 years to leave the country. LOL

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth.

[Kathy30]

Maxparrish you are right on the button. Except there won't be two official languages. There will be just one. spanish.

The final end will come when a born American citizen holding dual citizenship with mexico gets elected president. By then, though, mayors, congressmen and senators will be holding offices in both countries simultaneously. Slowly but surely the political landscape will make this one country and that country will be mexico.

And I for one will be one of the biggest traitors ever to grace the land of the former USA.

[maxparrish]

maxparrish, i think you're being too pessimistic. I don't think the party will be destroyed. I think Bush was the biggest liability the Republicans had, now they can begin to move away from him and start acting sensibly.

Besides, in 2 years they can take over again. It's not like the Democrats have a lock on the Senate; their 'majority' also includes 2 independents. House might be a little harder but it's not impossible.

Well, I was in a down mood when I wrote my projections. That being said, I would not change a word except that I think I might push out the prediction to 15 or 20 years.

I would not be too optomistic. Two thirds of the Senate seats for 2008 are Republican. If we hold our 49 we will be lucky, and I expect that at best we will get 6-7 seats back in the House. At worst we will lose another 2 or 3 Senate seats and another 3 or 4 House seats.

Of larger conern is that Multiculturalism without the melting pot is one of the greatest dangers we face. At the turn of the century the U.S. had such massive immigration that it had to call a halt by the 20's, people just could not be assimilated at those rates. In an era where everyone had to learn English in public schools and in which all immigrants had to find their own support it was still difficult. In short order we had New York, Chicago, etc. turn into gangs and the rise of the underworld of gangsters. In the same era foreign workers brought socialist ideology to the US and the radicalization of the labor unions occurred (IWW) - an era marked by massive strikes in mining towns and major industries.

It is clear that the new policy will strongly favor Mexico, not other Latino countries and not other foreign populations. The even larger new waves will be legal and hold dual citizenship with Mexico (also something the US banned at one time). I live in Northern California and I once overlooked LA and the south half - no more. As I look at my modest little valley near SF, and see most retail outlets (in the last 5 years) now dominated by Mexican nationals, many who barely speak enough English to checkout a customer. Want to guess how they will vote when given amnesty and citizenship?

Want to guess how many Iraqi's we will have to admit after our withdrawal? Politicians will tell us "we broke it, let them come".

NEW PREDICTION

The "Immigration Reform" will break the back of the GOP, while Bush and his cronies celebrate with the Democrats under bi-partisanship "band of brothers" rhetoric, several 10's of millions of conservatives will simmer with renewed anger and deep depression.

Under "bi-partisanship" Bush will bend over and hand the Vaseline to Harry and Nancy. Large increases in the minimum wage will be quickly approved and tied to the CPI...ironically this will only contribute to the economic difficulties and unemployment of states like Ohio. Some goodies tax deductions for college costs will be given the middle class. Bush will renege and tax increases for the two or three highest brackets will pass. Capital gains reduction "for those rich people" will be modified or (more likely) expire in 2008.

Remember that all of this will be done with Bush's and McCain's blessing. Democrats will get the credit for "getting things done" and "setting the tone of Washington" because they made Bush "retreat from extremist right wing policies and go to the center". Even Iraq will not be a political problem because it is now a bipartisan attempt to 'win' while pulling out. The press will highlight the new congress, and show that under Republicans there is chaos and under Democrats there is blessfull peace. If a court appointment comes up, a new David Souter type will be chosen, rather than fight for conservative judges.

The mood will turn sour 9 months before the election in 2008. Suddenly bi-partisanship will end and the democrats will go into screaming, hysteria, smears, and lies again blaming "Bush's plan" for troop withdrawal as actually losing Iraq...helped by the press. Republicans will be accused of obstructionism, and losing Iraq, even if they are lap dogs to democrats.

On this wave, Hillary will run against ? McCain...Guilliani...an unknown conservative? Most likely it will be McCain, in which case it will not matter a great deal who wins- McCain will work well with a Democratic Congress. Among the new government and socialist initiatives passed will be:
signing Kyoto, new global warming regulations, universal health care, spreading corruption in the RED STATE governments of the SWest as democratic machines become spoils systems for huge new populations of Latino groups, talk radio will be closed down or restricted, etc.

In 2010 to 2014 the electoral map will change from new demographics of ex California/east coast liberal yuppie types and new immigrants join forces in traditional states. These red states will turn blue: Colorado, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, New Hampshire and perhaps Texas. Other 'blue' states with traditionalist populations will not turn red because no matter how bad it gets for Minnesota, Michigan, or Wisconsin their history of white "north European" socialism-populism is deeply ingrained.

American will be divided between the Great Plains and South (Red) vs. the remaining country. (Blue) with the blues much stronger.

When will conservatives have a chance? Once immigration slows (if it does) and socialist medical / regulatory schemes are shown to be sterile, and the economy and culture tanks as it did in Jimmy Carter's era , and a new Ronald Reagan rises then conservatism may get a chance. However, don't look at another opportunity to wield real conservative power before 2016 or 2024.

[maxparrish]

A few other comments:

To DF: Bush has not done a good job. That is not to say he is scum, only that he has been more destructive of conservatism than any prior Republican President. Among his blunders and legacy in addition to your short list:

Massive federal growth & approval of pork
Approval of Campaign Finance Reform and rise of Democratic 527 power
Approval of CFR and restrictions on free speech
Pushing of Medicare Drug Plan without serious financing
Support of Affirmative Action Discrimination in Court Cases.
Submission of Meirs as "a woman" quota and "trust" me and our revolt.
Crude framing of science questions, an image of "anti-science"
Poor appointments in many areas (e.g. Immigration head).
Unwillingness to Go to the People to Ask for Support Appointments, Judges
Failure to use Judges and Eminent Domain Protection as core campaingn ssues.
Failure to push for serious eminent domain protection.
Failure to exploit innovative Medical Care, entitlement, etc. ideas by Conservative think tanks.
Failure to veto on a wide range of issues.
Failure to have a vision of a conservative government.

TomSawyer: I do tend to be a pessimist. However, when it comes to long term social/cultural trends I am right about 85% of the time. Since WWII the only time we had a Republican President and Congress was for a few years under Bush - and we blew it. We don't defend our most effective and powerful leaders (Gingrich then Delay), we let a compliment of an old man turn into the ousting of Lott, we permit hysteria over Macacca, etc.

Yes we can turn this around BUT Bush is our worst enemy in doing so.

Smart republicans and the right GOP President would:

obstruct the democrats as they did us.
put our principles front and center.
corner democrats with demands they pass voting ID's against fraud,
putting in anti-pork rules, sharing power in the Senate (as we did with them for a bit), going to the people over Bolton and the UN, tell the American people that Democratic bipartisanship is now possible without Democratic obstructionism, highlight democratic pork (e.g. Murtha's big time military defense pork), etc. AND fighting for a sane immigration reform.

It won't happen, will it?

[DesertFox]

To DF: Bush has not done a good job. That is not to say he is scum, only that he has been more destructive of conservatism than any prior Republican President. Among his blunders and legacy in addition to your short list:To maxparrish: Bush has indeed done fine except on two major issues: Domestic spending and illegals. A third can be added: communicating with America, on which he has done a singularly poor job.

[Naturalized-Texan]

Re: Domestic spending:

How can the federal government rebuild the military after 8 years of BJ Clinton's decimation and fight the War on Terror without huge increases in spending?

As you can plainly see from the chart and the tables below taken from the mid-session reviews of the past 3 budget years, the rate of spending growth for non-DoD/non-Homeland Security discretionary spending has declined every year that President Bush has been in office and such spending is actually projected to decline slightly between 2006 and 2007. During the same period there have been huge increases in discretionary spending for DoD and Homeland Security.

Consequently, unless you object to increased spending to rebuild the military and to fight the War on Terror, your complaints about spending under President Bush just don't hold water.

http://tex.connectingzone.com/BudgetChart.jpg
(Source:FY2005 Budget Mid-Session Review)

http://tex.connectingzone.com/FY2006_msr.jpg
(Source: FY2006 Budget Mid-Session Review)

http://tex.connectingzone.com/FY2007_msr.jpg
(Source: FY2007 Budget Mid-Session Review)

(Note: At least the FY2007 Budget Mid-Session Review can be found in pdf form at the Government Printing Office (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/).)

[A-Fletch]

This is an outlandish overreaction... and where do you get off all of a sudden calling him 'George'? How disrespectful.

[The_Sonarman]

I wouldn't feel so down about all this folks. It isn't the end of the world, or the party or the country. It's simply time to get back to the drawing board.
I agree. People, I waited 25 years just for the effort to start, in terms of taking back the country. You don't give up just due to a small setback. "They" want you to give up. If you give up, you lose and they win. Period. End of Novel.

I live for the days the communists such as Pelosi, Dean, Kennedy, et. al. are whining and bitching on TV and radio, and when they are out of power. That's my indicator "we" are on the right track.

"We" have only been working towards turning things around since 1994.... a mere 11 or so years ago. That's just the start.

Certainly, take a couple weeks to get over the last election. I ask that you don't just give up.

It remains to be seen whether the RNC is going to be the vehicle of straightening out the country or not. IMHO, the jury is "out" on that question. Someone of Newt Gingrich's education and clout is going to have to slap some people around and get them straightened out, and quick.

[MSGT]

A third can be added: communicating with America, on which he has done a singularly poor job.That is his greatest failure.

What I fear is that the pubs won't read the vote for what it was. They may run Mcpain thinking they need to go to the center. This would hand 08 to the dems.

America wants them to be more conservative and to stop acting like a scared little girl when they have the power. All this bipartisan BS and begging dems to like you when they would rather see you dead.:gag:

[DesertFox]

My complaints about Bush's spending very much hold water.

George W. Bush is the president who pushed the prescription drug benefit. THAT is domestic spending, it's completely unwarranted, it's an FDR-type expansion of govt into places it doesn't belong, and it's a bank buster.

George W. Bush is the president who let Ted *hic* Kennedy write the NCLB law, which jacked up educational spending into the stratosphere. Something needed to be done about education, but throwing more money at it wasn't it.

There's no excuse for what Bush has done in domestic spending. There were many other ways to do what he wanted done far more cheaply than the routes he chose.

One can choose to ignore this, or pretend it isn't what it is. Some do. I don't.

[Naturalized-Texan]

My complaints about Bush's spending very much hold water.

George W. Bush is the president who pushed the prescription drug benefit. THAT is domestic spending, it's completely unwarranted, it's an FDR-type expansion of govt into places it doesn't belong, and it's a bank buster.

George W. Bush is the president who let Ted *hic* Kennedy write the NCLB law, which jacked up educational spending into the stratosphere. Something needed to be done about education, but throwing more money at it wasn't it.

There's no excuse for what Bush has done in domestic spending. There were many other ways to do what he wanted done far more cheaply than the routes he chose.

One can choose to ignore this, or pretend it isn't what it is. Some do. I don't.

However, he did exactly what he promised to do in the 2000 campaign. We all knew that he would implement both of those programs, yet we voted for him anyway. We all knew what we were getting when we voted for him in 2000 and 2004.

However, it is still an unarguable fact that the rate of growth of non-DoD/non-Homeland-Security discretionary spending declined every year of the Bush presidency.

[DesertFox]

N-T, those are rather fatuous arguments you're proffering. It is an unarguable fact that there were any number of ways to go about fulfilling those campaign promises, and Bush unarguably chose among the most expensive, making no apparent effort to limit them in any way. It is also an unarguable fact that one of these days the Bush economy will slow down, but the Bush entitlements will keep on keeping on. You know it.

It isn't necessary to defend Bush where he's indefensible. He turned out to be a big govt Republican, something most of us never suspected when he represented himself as a "compassionate conservative." Though a social conservative, Bush isn't an economic conservative in any way, shape or form, and to pretend he was -- compassionate or otherwise -- was disingenous at best.

[maxparrish]

To maxillaries: Bush has indeed done fine except on two major issues: Domestic spending and illegals. A third can be added: communicating with America, on which he has done a singularly poor job.

One supposes, given your imperial dismissal, without a thimble of evidence, of my extensive (but not exhaustive) list that what you really want to say is:

"Bush did fine except on two major issues, the domestic issues and the foreign policy issues"...

Conservatives have always had a major problem with all of the items on my list...and I could have added his 1/2 Trillion dollar farm subsidy program and Steel Tariffs, but I wanted to give the poseur a break. Heck even on Iraq he did not do "a fine job" - he screwed up. Oh jeez, he also screwed up in the appointment/management of Fitzgerald, oh and look at Norm Mineta...now that was "a fine job". Finally, no one would claim he did "a fine job" on Katrina or FEM or the so called Intelligence Reorganization. Did I mention the port deal f' up or the failure to followup on Clinton ethics investigations and/or Sandy Berger's theft?

Actually the question is just what did he do a "fine job" on? I would suggest it was on a couple of items:

1) The War on Terror (excluding Iraq). In spite of his tactical blunders (e.g. his reversal on creating commissions to investigate himself, Norm Minetta, refusal to do profiling, refusal to press the important 9-11 recommendations, etc.) he has done a better job than any liberal President could. His NSA program, GITMO set-up, and pursuit of terrorists has been to the max this pathetic country full of fools could stomach without crying about their civil rights.

2) In nominating conservative judges - although the management of getting these justices approved was lacking...stained by the Meir's debacle.

3) In not pushing even more dumb stuff such as Kyoto.

Ya, a "fine job"...

NTex - Actually you have a point on spending, one worth investigating. I doubt he did "a fine job", but maybe it was not as bad as we think...I will think about it .

Max

[Peachdiane]

I wouldn't feel so down about all this folks. It isn't the end of the world, or the party or the country. It's simply time to get back to the drawing board.

Agreed. I've always felt we should keep our spirits up and work at local level anyway. Give my best to LH...

I hope you don't do crisis counseling for a living:sad:

:rotflmbo:

[DesertFox]

Max, your griping about Bush is stale stuff. You're stating your opinion, nothing more or less, and not very persuasively at that.

[Wyatt_Junker]

Bush is now a piñata. And everyone is trying to prove their badassery by taking swings. There's a small tear in his BVDs. Pretty soon a tidal wave of candy is gonna fall outta his ass.

[EveningStar]

Bush is now a piñata. And everyone is trying to prove their badassery by taking swings. There's a small tear in his BVDs. Pretty soon a tidal wave of candy is gonna fall outta his ass.
Wyatt, you're insane! :rotflmbo:

[maxparrish]

Max, your griping about Bush is stale stuff. You're stating your opinion, nothing more or less, and not very persuasively at that. You would'nt be the first conservative to make excuses for Bush, there's a bunch of them in Congress and the Senate packing to go home.

"Its not Bushs fault, he did a fine job".

Glug glug glug.

[Bluemoon_Rising]

I've been down about tuesday's election, but your post made me feel so much....................................more down.
I hope you don't do crisis counseling for a living:sad:


:rotflmbo:

[Etaoin]

Maxparrish you are right on the button. Except there won't be two official languages. There will be just one. spanish.

The final end will come when a born American citizen holding dual citizenship with mexico gets elected president. By then, though, mayors, congressmen and senators will be holding offices in both countries simultaneously. Slowly but surely the political landscape will make this one country and that country will be mexico.

And I for one will be one of the biggest traitors ever to grace the land of the former USA.

Kathy, Kathy....just stop and think instead of emote. This disaster was implicit and inevitable in 1999 and 2000 when Bush campaigned as "compassionate" Conservative. Consider the historical imperative which we face. Since protohumans lived in caves, the very gradual trend has consistently been toward larger groups being governed. Family, tribes, ever larger areas and populations being controlled by, Robber thugs, then "nobles," then kings controlling the Nobles who owned the people. Now it is nations that are in decline and the trend is toward Continental government. (This historical imperative is the main cause of the failure ot both the League of Nations and the United Nations. They were out of temporal sequence!) Ever larger pieces of geography are being controlled by an ever more authoritarian entity! Is it possible that the authoritarian Mullahs are more in tune with the Hoi Polloi than the Conservatives that believe in Freedom. The recent campaign of malicious and mostly untrue vicious lies which produced success at the ballot box is not reassuring.

WE must accept (and not happily, but realistically) the fact that there will be "Continental Government" and work to achieve power within the structure. That is the only way that any semblance of freedom can survive. We Conservatives have an important position to play in this development unless we become ostracized by blind opposition!

[Bluemoon_Rising]

My complaints about Bush's spending very much hold water.

George W. Bush is the president who pushed the prescription drug benefit. THAT is domestic spending, it's completely unwarranted, it's an FDR-type expansion of govt into places it doesn't belong, and it's a bank buster.

George W. Bush is the president who let Ted *hic* Kennedy write the NCLB law, which jacked up educational spending into the stratosphere. Something needed to be done about education, but throwing more money at it wasn't it.

There's no excuse for what Bush has done in domestic spending. There were many other ways to do what he wanted done far more cheaply than the routes he chose.

One can choose to ignore this, or pretend it isn't what it is. Some do. I don't.

Bush is a decent man, but his inability to effectively communicate and forcefully back his most important initiatives -- social security, tax and tort reform, none of which have been achieved -- is frustrating as hell.

1.) He failed to aggressively confront Syria early on after toppling Sadam and force it to stop the flow of insurgents and arms into Iraq.

2.) He foisted a dunderheaded prescription drug benefit on this nation.

3.) As you say, he let that bloated sow -- effeminate pejorative intended -- write NCLB.

4.) He has been utterly AWOL on immigration reform. I'm talking about leadership! hammering out a comprehensive bill that unites the best of both the Senate and House proposals. Now we are likely to get mostly the Senate version of "reform." Damn it!

These things piss me off.

Nevertheless, I think that True_American mostly has it right when he writes:

I wouldn't feel so down about all this folks. It isn't the end of the world, or the party or the country. It's simply time to get back to the drawing board.

I'm not down on registering as an independent though. That seems to negate the whole idea about getting back to the drawing board. Also, I don't want to see any candy dropping out of Bush's ass.

[Incident_command]

Bush is now a piñata. And everyone is trying to prove their badassery by taking swings. There's a small tear in his BVDs. Pretty soon a tidal wave of candy is gonna fall outta his ass.

Badassery.........I like it. May even use it in the future.

[HooverWasRight]

Bush done fine except for his spending and his nonstance on illegals -- admittedly, two pretty big exceptions. The alternative -- JFK -- would not have done fine on anything and we'da had to put up with his stupid spoiled ugly whore of a wife.


I wonder if Foster was really doing her

[HooverWasRight]

This is an outlandish overreaction... and where do you get off all of a sudden calling him 'George'? How disrespectful.

You're right...the Chimp deserves better.

[2nd_Amendment]

As I wrote in other threads, John McCain is by far the single individual most responsible for the Democrat takeover of both houses of Congress.

The above is an almost insane camment. McVain is irrelevent to the vast majority of the nation. He had no effect whatsoever on most(any?) votes outside his immediate and small sphere of influence.

As I have wrote in other threads, people like you will be most responsible if we don't take things back in '08.

[DesertFox]

Badassery.........I like it. May even use it in the future. Somewhere in Carlo d'Este's superb biography of Patton, the general says something in a speech to the men about stopping "the son-of-a- bitchery." I wonder how he kept from laughing when he said it.

[Naturalized-Texan]

N-T, those are rather fatuous arguments you're proffering. It is an unarguable fact that there were any number of ways to go about fulfilling those campaign promises, and Bush unarguably chose among the most expensive, making no apparent effort to limit them in any way. It is also an unarguable fact that one of these days the Bush economy will slow down, but the Bush entitlements will keep on keeping on. You know it.
You're ignoring the reality of politics. When analyzing those programs - NCLB and prescription drugs - you must take into account the makeup of Congress with narrow or non-existent Republican majorities AND the fact that there are enough RINOs to prevent the passage of any conservative-leaning initiatives. Bush proposed school choice for the education bill, but it was shot down by a combination of Democrats and RINOS. Bush proposed MSAs for both Medicare and the prescription drug program, but they were shot down by a combination of Democrats and RINOS. President Bush got the best that he could possibly get with Congress aligned as it was.

If any person or group should be blamed for those programs, blame McCain and the RINOs/Democrats, not President Bush.

It isn't necessary to defend Bush where he's indefensible. He turned out to be a big govt Republican, something most of us never suspected when he represented himself as a "compassionate conservative." Though a social conservative, Bush isn't an economic conservative in any way, shape or form, and to pretend he was -- compassionate or otherwise -- was disingenous at best.
See my comments above.

[Naturalized-Texan]

NTex - Actually you have a point on spending, one worth investigating. I doubt he did "a fine job", but maybe it was not as bad as we think...I will think about it .

Max
I never said that President Bush did "fine job" on spending. That was DF putting words in my mouth. My point was that Bush is getting a bum rap on spending since the rate of growth of non-DOD/non-Homeland-Security discretionary spending has declined every year of the Bush presidency and I proved it with actual figures

[Naturalized-Texan]

N-T, those are rather fatuous arguments you're proffering. It is an unarguable fact that there were any number of ways to go about fulfilling those campaign promises, and Bush unarguably chose among the most expensive, making no apparent effort to limit them in any way. It is also an unarguable fact that one of these days the Bush economy will slow down, but the Bush entitlements will keep on keeping on. You know it.
I did a little more research into the spending on NCLB and the prescription drug program using the FY2007 Budget Mid-Session Review as my source. Here are the results of that research:

NCLB: Spending on education, including NCLB, went up $15.5 billion between FY 2001 and FY 2006 and is projected to decline by $2.1 billion between FY2006 and FY 2007. More importantly, spending for education, including NCLB, is included in the non-DoD/non-Homeland-Security discretionary for which the rate of spending growth has declined every year of the Bush presidency. In fact, such spending is projected to decline by $1.6 billion between FY 2006 and FY2007.

Prescription Drug Program: When enacted, spending for this program was projected to be $500 billion over 10 years, i.e., $50 billion per year, starting in FY2006. Overall Medicare spending was projected to increase by $36 billion for FY2006 and by $52 billion for FY2007.

Admittedly, $15 billion and $50 billion are both lots of money, but not compared to increases of about $140 billion for DoD and Homeland Security and only a drop in the bucket in a $2.8 trillion budget.

Here are some more interesting figures for FY2007:

Total Discretionary Spending: $1.068 trillion

Total Mandatory Spending: $1.482 trillion

Interest: $248 billion

Also, President Bush beat his promise to cut the deficit in half by FY2009 by 3 years, thanks to his pro-growth tax rate cuts. If the Dims don't rescind the Bush tax rate cuts, there is no reason that the current economic boom can't continue for many years into the future.