Regarding Bush not being responsible for an increase in spending due to NEW Programs, again Medved is incorrect. How about the Medicare prescription drug program that the White House pushed through. They even lied to members of congress about the cost of the program, to insure its passage.

Just for Chuck2 , here’s a link to an article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9328-2005Feb8.html

“Beginning with his January 2003 State of the Union address, Bush pledged to keep the total cost of the drug benefit to $400 billion over 10 years. An estimate by the Congressional Budget Office was close to Bush’s figure.

But shortly after Bush signed the program into law in December 2003, the White House revised its projection to $534 billion, but it never offered a detailed breakdown of that estimate.

Last March, Richard S. Foster, Medicare’s chief actuary for nearly a decade, said administration officials threatened to fire him if he disclosed his belief in 2003 that the drug package would cost $500 billion to $600 billion. Lawmakers in both parties accused the administration of concealing important information that could have derailed passage of the bill.”

Here is another view of this with sources noted.

“Bush had pushed hard for the Medicare drug benefit, but said he would not sign anything that exceeded $400 billion,” according to the Boston Globe. [Boston Globe, 1/30/04]

Fact: Bush’s Medicare Reform Will Cost Almost Double What He First Claimed
According to the Chicago Tribune, “The federal government plans to spend more than $700 billion during the next 10 years to provide drug coverage under Medicare as part of a landmark bill signed by President Bush in December 2003.” Originally, Bush’s prescription drug plan was to have cost $400 billion over 10 years.[Chicago Tribune, 2/26/06; Washington Post, 1/29/04]

Fact: Bush Administration Intentionally Hid Cost of Plan To Win Votes in Congress
In late January 2004, the Administration announced they had underestimated the total cost of the package by $135 billion. Bush relied on a $400 billion figure for the first decade of the prescription drug benefit in persuading fiscal conservatives to support the plan last November. But less than two months after signing the legislation, and two years before the benefit becomes available to seniors, the Department of Health and Human Services revised the number up to $535 billion. According to the Washington Post, “Among a small group of lawmakers who negotiated the bill’s final version, ‘it was an open secret’ that administration officials believed ‘there is no way this is $400 billion.‘” [New York Times, 1/30/04; Washington Times, 12/8/03; Washington Post, 1/31/04; Boston Globe, 1/30/04; New York Times, 2/2/04]

Fact: Bush Administration Threatened to Fire Medicare Expert If He Revealed True Cost of Plan
Prior to the congressional vote on the Medicare prescription-drug plan, Richard S. Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, produced a $551 billion estimate for the bill which was at odds with Bush’s publicly-proclaimed estimate. Foster sent an email to colleagues on June 26, 2003 stating that he would be fired if he revealed the higher estimate to lawmakers. [Knight Ridder, 3/11/04]