Big-Spender President Poses As Conservative

The spendthrift currently occupying the White House spent the first six years of his term without vetoing a single spending bill. Domestic spending has grown faster under Bush than it did under Democrat Bill Clinton (who left office with a huge surplus). Bush has not only outspent any previous Democratic president, but he has created the largest debt of any president of any party.

Now he wants to pose as a conservative. He calls the Democratic plan to cover more children with health insurance just more "tax and spend" politics, and says it's a move toward socialized medicine. Unbelievably, he used his first veto of a spending bill to deny healthcare to children (the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP).

The SCHIP plan he vetoed would have cost $35 billion over the next five years. Then he turns around and asks for another $190 billion to finance his failure in Iraq (which probably won't even finance a year of the futile war). He is willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to finance the killing of thousands of Iraqis and Americans, but he cannot spend $7 billion a year to provide healthcare for children.

He may call himself a conservative, but the American people are not buying it anymore. Most Americans think he has his priorities backward. They want to spend more on healthcare for children and less on Bush's war in Iraq.

A new ABC/Washington Post poll shows that 67% of Americans want to spend less in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only 27% approve of Bush's $190 billion request. Also, 72% of Americans approved of the program to increase children's healthcare coverage, while only 25% opposed it. Even Republicans can't understand the president's skewed priorities.

When Bush took office in 2000, it looked as though the Republican majority might last many years. But the Bush policies, coupled with the immoral and unethical behavior of many Republicans, has destroyed that in a scant 7 years.

Republican elected officials can read the polls. They already knew that as a party they were in trouble. They also know that Bush's latest moves may have sounded the deathknell for their party in the upcoming election. It's possible that in an effort to save themselves, many may desert Bush and help Democrats override his veto on children's healthcare.

Bush seems hellbent on a path to destroy the Republican party.