bush refuses all compromise

From CNN :

Bush threatens to veto changes to Medicare prescription drug benefit

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Friday threatened to veto any changes Congress tries to make to Medicare's new prescription drug benefit, which takes effect in January 2006.
"I signed Medicare reform proudly and any attempt to limit the choices of our seniors and to take away their prescription drug coverage under Medicare will meet my veto," Bush said at a swearing-in ceremony for Mike O. Leavitt, the new secretary of Health and Human Services.
A new cost estimate for the benefit released by the administration this week showed the first full decade of the program will cost taxpayers $724 billion, renewing debate in Congress over the benefit's viability.
The new figure is much higher than the $534 billion cost calculated by the administration earlier.
That's because the previous decade-long projection included fewer years when the drug benefit was in effect.
Bush pledged this week to "deal with the unfunded liabilities of Medicare" once Social Security is overhauled as he has proposed.
But lawmakers long skeptical of the administration's cost estimates of the prescription drug benefit said the new, higher price tag hurt the White House's credibility on this issue.
Congress narrowly approved the drug legislation in 2003 after an extraordinary all-night debate. At the time, Republican leaders assured wavering lawmakers that the program would cost $400 billion, including expected savings. Just two months later, after the law was enacted, the administration revised the cost estimate to $534 billion.
Now, with the new upward revision, lawmakers across the political spectrum say the drug benefit should be re-examined before it takes effect next January. Some Republicans long skeptical of the administration's estimates expressed alarm at the escalating costs and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, called for an investigation.
In seeking to defend the law against any changes in Congress, Bush called the legislation "a landmark achievement in American health care."
"Millions of older Americans are already benefiting from its reforms," he said. "We all know the alternative to reform: a Medicare system that offers outdated benefits and imposes needless costs. For decades, we've promised American seniors we can do better, and we finally did."

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once again, bush refuses to listen to all compromise while he spends, spends, spends. This will cost over $300 BILLION more than he claimed that it would! So, this is "conservative"?!?!?!?!