You know, IF I were into conspiracy theory, I might be tempted to put forward the following explanation.

Taking advantage of the Clinton prosperity, the Bush administration launched wars, unfunded tax cuts for their constituents, and an expensive Rx drug plan to pander to the Medicare set, knowing that it would precipitate a budget crisis in the next administration that they could either blame on the Democrats, or if they were in power, give them exactly the excuse they needed to eviscerate entitlement programs as an "emergency measure".

Unfortunately, their timing was off, the economy started to turn earlier than they expected, and crashed altogether before the end of their term. The elections yielded the worst of all possible worlds for them, a Republican Depression, an invigorated Left, a Democratic congressional sweep, and a young, charismatic urban liberal in the White House.

All politicians like to pump up an economy just before election time, but this time it turned out just the opposite of what they expected. And the budget meltdown they had hoped to postpone safely into the future so they would have the excuse they needed to go after Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security materialized on their watch. You will remember, Bush, Obama AND McCain were ALL perfectly ready to TARP their way out of a stock market crash. Regardless of ideology, that's all anybody could think of at the time, even the Right. (It's not easy to be a good Libertarian when your 401K is going down by the stern.)

Well, the economy has not recovered, but it has not collapsed, either, and it appears it may even begin to recover in time for the next Presidential election. The markets arre rising and corporate profits are up. The Republicans had successes in the mid-terms, but it wasn't the Democratic rout they might have wished for, and now they've got an Obama health plan to beat their chests about. And their one valid issue, the stimulus-bloated deficit they helped create, is now being eclipsed by an obsession on the part of their base with Guns, Gays and Gynecology, a base which is aging just like the rest of the population and doesn't want to hear about cuts to their entitlements either. They think the budget can be balanced by pulling the plug on NPR.

Well, all I can say is it's a good thing I'm not into conspiracy theories.