Conservatism reduced

Here it is, distilled into two paragraphs:

[W]hy should Mr. Bush fear that insuring uninsured children would lead to a further “federalization” of health care, even though nothing like that is actually in either the Senate plan or the House plan? It’s not because he thinks the plans wouldn’t work. It’s because he’s afraid that they would. That is, he fears that voters, having seen how the government can help children, would ask why it can’t do the same for adults.

And there you have the core of Mr. Bush’s philosophy. He wants the public to believe that government is always the problem, never the solution. But it’s hard to convince people that government is always bad when they see it doing good things. So his philosophy says that the government must be prevented from solving problems, even if it can. In fact, the more good a proposed government program would do, the more fiercely it must be opposed.

Right. Remember, the SCHIP extension will be paid for with revenue from increased tobacco taxes. The fear for conservatives is that it'll work so well that people will begin to realize that it might be worth paying for broader reforms with broader taxes, and so would blossom socialism a vastly improved health care system in this country at the expense of a few very powerful interests.

Remember also, it is utterly unimportant to the conservatives of today how popular or well-tested an idea is. If that idea threatens--in a direct but myopic way--an ally's bottom line, then they will oppose it; either with misinformation ("Go ask a Canadian!") or with whatever political power they have to wield (veto, filibuster, etc). That's how it's played.

Comments

[Trevor]

" It’s because he’s afraid that they would. That is, he fears that voters, having seen how the government can help children, would ask why it can’t do the same for adults."

It's also because he's afraid that people will ask why he didn't do it six years ago.