Robert Novak is worried about the negative downside to enacting the Prescription Drugs plan.
Odds are that Medicare legislation, after nearly four months in a Senate-House conference following passage by both houses, will not sink. It is intended to inoculate Bush's re-election campaign from charges he has no compassion for senior citizens. Whether it actually achieves that end, the strategy worries many Republicans.
The inoculation's side effects could depress the Republican political base in next year's election with disastrous consequences for the president. Apart from any political downside, the first fully Republican government -- presidency, Senate and House -- in 38 years is building a major addition to the welfare state. The prescription drug subsidy will be the first major new federal entitlement since Medicare in 1965.
Yep, it is a real downer that President Bush is going to keep a campaign promise. But then again, maybe it will be like the No Child Left Behind initiative, which President Bush passed and then failed to pay for, letting it die on the vine.
Oh, and "Negative Downside"? Totally redundent phrase. But I used it anyway.
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