The Bush Administration Doesn’t Work. A Well-Run Government Does.

by   |  July 31, 2007

In a spot-on column in yesterday’s New York Times [subscription only], columnist Paul Krugman examines George W. Bush’s insidious strategy to prove that government does no good by having it do no good. In discussing Bush’s opposition to increasing funding for SCHIP, a popular and hugely successful program that provides access to health care to children in need, Krugman writes:

Now, why 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.

In his blog, Matt Yglesias calls this Can’t Do Conservatism, and points out that, “Unfortunately, the public opinion data does tend to suggest that Bush's staggering achievements in the field of maladministration have, in fact, boosted public skepticism of government capacity to do anything at all to some extent.” Crooks and Liars adds: “So much for compassionate conservatism.” Read more on The Carpetbagger Report.