Bush Drug Bill

At the end of 2003, Bush II and his GOP congress passed "the largest health-care entitlement bill since Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law in 1965". The proposed $ 400 billion bill has provided prescription drugs to elderly Americans. The problem is that "no provision was made to pay for it-either by tax increases or by reductions in other programs". A former director of the CBO "estimated...the cost at least $ 1 trillion by its second decade: 2014-23". How come republicans were not screaming about the budget deficit then as they are now that Obama wants a health care bill? Obama"s bill would include a means of funding. As a respected colleague of mine always says the difference between democrats and republicans is that one taxes and spends while the other spends but does not tax.

(Source: "Democrats Might Learn Something from Dirty Dancing Tom DeLay" by Lou DuBose in The Washington Spectator on 11/1/09).