WP: Blueprint Calls for Bigger, More Powerful Government

[Pirate Smile]

Blueprint Calls for Bigger, More Powerful Government
Some Conservatives Express Concern at Agenda

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A01

President Bush's second-term agenda would expand not only the size of the federal government but also its influence over the lives of millions of Americans by imposing new national restrictions on high schools, court cases and marriages.

In a clear break from Republican campaigns of the 1990s to downsize government and devolve power to the states, Bush is fostering what amounts to an era of new federalism in which the national government shapes, not shrinks, programs and institutions to comport with various conservative ideals, according to Republicans inside and outside the White House.

Bush is calling for new federal accountability and testing requirements for all public high schools, after imposing similar mandates on grades three through eight during his first term. To limit lawsuits against businesses and professionals, he is proposing to put a federal cap on damage awards for medical malpractice, to force class-action cases into federal courts and to help create a national settlement of outstanding asbestos-related cases.

On social policy, the president is pushing a constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage in the states and continuing to define and expand the federal government's role in encouraging religious groups to help administer social programs such as community drug-rehabilitation efforts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9307-2005Feb8.html

[merwin]

1. Aren't conservatives supposed to be for smaller govt? n/t

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. Yes, conservatives are, but fascists and neoconservatives (is there a diff

are not.

[Pirate Smile]

3. No kidding. "Conservative" does not fit Bush. There appear to be some

rumblings within the Rethugs happy family.

""He keeps expanding the federal involvement into state and local affairs," said Chris Edwards, a tax and budget expert at the Cato Institute, a think tank that often supports the president's agenda. "My hope would be that there would be an electoral rebuke of big <-government> Republicans like there was when the tectonic plates shifted in 1994."

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), said: "The Republican majority, left to its own devices from 1995 to 2000, was a party committed to limited government and restoring the balances of federalism with the states. Clearly, President Bush has had a different vision, and that vision has resulted in education and welfare policies that have increased the size and scope of government."

Pence, an influential leader of House conservatives, said 50 Republicans gathered in Baltimore this past week and discussed, among other things, an overwhelming desire to protest the expansion of government by opposing Bush's education plan for high school students. While only 33 House Republicans opposed the No Child Left Behind law in the first term, Pence predicted that a significantly larger number will vote against expanding the program to cover high schools. Michael Franc of the Heritage Foundation, a pro-Bush think tank, agreed. "It's a non-starter" in the minds of a large number of Republicans, he said. "

This time I agree with the Cato Institiute, I too hope there will be an "electoral rebuke of big <-government> Republicans like there was when the tectonic plates shifted in 1994." '

2006 here we come.

[mikehiggins]

4. I'm amazed anyone still thinks these bozos are conservatives.

Were he still alive, Barry Goldwater would be leading the charge against these clowns in a way that would make Howard Dean look positively limp. They have not "betrayed" conservative ideals because the conservatives are just one more group that these people have consistently and repeatedly lied to and made fools of.

Eventually even the most ideological red-stater will have to face up to the fact that they have traded their years of commitment for just another "Big Government" scheme, benefiting the same "elites" that have always screwed the little guy.

And won't that be funny to see?

[Fridays Child]

5. I just checked, and this isn't up at freakrepublic, yet.

Somehow, I doubt that it will ever be. They don't like articles that challenge their delusional view of the world.

[Pirate Smile]

7. It is a good article. This should be a huge problem between

Bush and traditional Conservatives. We better exploit it, big time.

[Rose Siding]

6. The examples are education and medicare

Time to strangle the beast aka New Deal. Can we just TALK for a minute about HOMELAND SECURITY, the swollen DoD and the PATRIOT ACT? How about the giant intelligence monster that's gestating?

[leesa]

8. So these idiots are just figuring this out?? Too busy at the trough?

[kskiska]

9. Kick for an important page 1 story

:kick:

[Erika]

10. He wants the feds in control of sooo much

He ran on smaller federal government and more power to the states. He's totally reversed it to the point it's ridiculous. California voted for marijuana, Bush said no. Oregon voted for assisted suicide, Bush says no. He IS "big brother" when it comes to education, once considered a local issue.He takes our taxes without giving us represntation.

[Straight Shooter]

11. Who cares about tests for high school students, bush?

1. They won't get decent jobs, you're outsourcing jobs left and right, to the point that education barely matters unless you're going for a master's, and even that is no guarantee of employment.

2. Students who graduate with superior grades in high school won't be able to afford college, tuition is rising drastically. Of course, those with "connections" will never ever have a problem. Look at bush, does anyone honestly think this arrogant coke-nose imbecile is capable of holding any kind of job unless it's been arranged or bought for him?

[drummer55]

12. Reframe city

stop alienating all republicans!

stop calling them rethugs and other childish names. Instead reach out to them and find common ground to advance the fight against the neo-conservative agenda.

Most of my friends who call themselves conservatives are not happy campers with what is going on right now.

Take a stroll through the internet and find out how many true blue conservatives speak out against this neo-conservative non-republican administration

http://www.alternet.org/election04/20367/

[applegrove]

13. I think we should start hitting them where it hurts. Gated communities.

I think we should start hitting them where it hurts. Gated communities.

If you made a test to allow gates to go up. If an area had to demonstrate that it had a high crime rate before gates when up. Then gates could be placed around the homes of the poor (or security systems in building improved). And no gates allowed for the rich.

After all - why should public money go to put sewers into places that put up gates so that the people inside will feel safe from city crime and not connected to all the people? What is the cost effectiveness of sewer systems in rich neighborhoods vs. poor? I think the sewers in the poor neighborhoods are more cost effective?

Why people should have to prove they are crime ridden before they get to use gates!!! And if they don't do this - don't give them any sewers.

[cthrumatrix]

14. Blueprint Calls for Bigger, More Powerful Government (Wash Post)

Blueprint Calls for Bigger, More Powerful Government
Some Conservatives Express Concern at Agenda

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A01

President Bush's second-term agenda would expand not only the size of the federal government but also its influence over the lives of millions of Americans by imposing new national restrictions on high schools, court cases and marriages.

In a clear break from Republican campaigns of the 1990s to downsize government and devolve power to the states, Bush is fostering what amounts to an era of new federalism in which the national government shapes, not shrinks, programs and institutions to comport with various conservative ideals, according to Republicans inside and outside the White House.

Bush is calling for new federal accountability and testing requirements for all public high schools, after imposing similar mandates on grades three through eight during his first term. To limit lawsuits against businesses and professionals, he is proposing to put a federal cap on damage awards for medical malpractice, to force class-action cases into federal courts and to help create a national settlement of outstanding asbestos-related cases.

snip
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9307-2005Feb8.html


Aren't the rethugs and "flush limbaugh" telling us daily that rehtugs stand "aganist big govt in your lives" ?

[bluestateguy]

15. Somehow this will be blamed on the "liberals"

Just watch.

[SpiralHawk]

16. "Big BushCo loves you"

"Bigger is better. Let the government control your life and your finances, and you will be safer. Heh, heh."

- Republican Party slogan

[Warren Stupidity]

17. not to nit pick but...

Bush is fostering what amounts to an era of new federalism

Actually federalism would be an improvement. Bush and the theoclowns are abandoning "federalism" where power is shared between a central authority and regional authorities, in favor of a unitary state. The US more or less abandoned federalism under FDR as it dealt with the economic crisis of the great depression and the planet-wide conflict that followed. Republican ideology paid lip service to federalism, typically to explain why it wasn't just racism to allow the southern ex confederacy states to continue to maintain their racial caste system.

A theocracy has to be able to put down secular regions of the nation that aren't participating in bringing god's dominion back to earth. Consequently, as with the push for the marriage amendment, federalism is out the window, and the single unitary state, which is really what we have now anyway, is back in.

[Pirate Smile]

18. kick

[Spiffarino]

19. Amazing how easy it was to dupe conservatives

...into thinking BushCo is on their side.

The neocons have no problem with big government as long as it's theirs. The worst part of all this is how the conservatives manage to convince themselves that this is all OK.